Customer Reviews

Impossible Dream

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Patty Griffin proves once again that she is a songwriter of formidable powers. I'm a big boy, but freely admit that I wept openly after after first hearing "Forgiveness" off her first album. This album is revelatory in another respect. Anyone who thinks of Patty as a songwriter first and a singer second should pop this CD into their stereo and repent. Her voice is soothing where it suits the song, and a tactical weapon of cataclysmic proportions at all other times.

The premise of such a large voice bellowing out of such a delicate frame beckons comparisons to Edith Piaf. The difference is that Patty's voice is more versatile. She can sing honky-tonk with a swagger (Loves Throws a Line), blues like a hip-cat (Standing), and the meloncholy ballad like nobody's business. "Cold as It Gets" might be her darkest song on record, and when she sings about a "wind that blows as cold as it gets/blew out the light in my soul," she leaves no room for doubt that the candle's out. I heard Patty sing "Top of the World" on public television back in 2000. I wondered why this incredible song hadn't made its way onto an album, and was quite surprised to see it on a Dixie Chicks album. It's a fine cover, but I was pleased to see Patty reclaim this song here. Her performance is superior because of its heightened emotionally intensity.

This album is only slightly blemished by some questionable mixing. Her vocals and the instrumentals are not always properly balanced. The instrumental lead-in on some songs was scarcely perceptible, prompting me to turn up the dial only to risk detonating my speakers once she actually started to sing.

With this album, she has achieved a perfect 5-0 record. There are few artists whose albums can be purchased without the slightest trepidation. Patty is one of the few.

Impossible Dream is hands down one of my most favorite albums in the last decade. I have been a Patty fan pretty much from the beginning of her career and I adore and love every album she has made, but "Impossible Dream" is a full masterpiece. There is not one song that doesn't stand out in some way for me. Everything about this album, down to the artwork is just breathtaking.

Love Throw A Line - This song is the perfect choice to start the album with. It gives me that feeling of being in the old south, either sitting in a little white church gettin down, having a grand old time with a gospel choir or in a little hole in the wall blues bar, that only you have somehow magically discovered. It's a fun song that makes you want to close your eyes and just imagine that you are actually there experiencing the beautiful rhythms and energy in this song.

Cold As It Gets - In this song Patty's voice blasts out at you with hauntingly beautiful lyrics. Again, it feels like you are being taken back in time somewhere. It's as if you can actually feel the words as she singing them.

Kite Song - This song is like a dream. You can actually feel and see yourself running through the fields in the hills flying a Kite with someone you hold very close to you. Makes you think of how simple and beautiful everything really is. The piano is so gorgeous in this song, you can't help but get misty-eyed with every listen.

Standing - In this song, Patty really shines. Her voice is just brilliant. You wonder to yourself how a small little red-haired white woman can possibly have so much soul. The song builds and builds and then goes back down to a slow bluesy hum and ends just as powerful as it starts.

Useless Desires - In my opinion the best song on the album and best song she has ever written. Everything about this song is amazing. Her voice, the lyrics, the music, melody and just the general flow of the whole song. This songs just takes me away to a place I feel safe in. The lyrics are like everything we've all at one time felt and wanted to somehow put into words, and she accomplishes this. Without any flaws. The way her range shifts so effortlessly is mind numbing. How one song could be so beautiful and capture every feeling I have ever had myself makes me very happy.

Top of the World - Lot's of people think this song is in fact a "Dixie Chicks" song. Not the case. Patty is the mastermind behind this gem. Another song where Patty shows off her amazing vocal range. It's one of her more melancholy songs on the album. We all want to be on top of the world, but non of us are quite sure how to get there. And if we do, how do we stay there?

Impossible Dream - Not an actual full track on the album, but a little snippet of the song "Impossible Dream' sung by Patty's Mom and Dad. Perfectly placed between TotW and RS.

Rowing Song - This song has a very special place in my heart. Because I have often felt the way the song conveys. The horns in this song are in my opinion so beautiful you can feel them in your soul, literally. This song is genius through and through.

When It Don't Come Easy - The piano and backing vocals in this song are what makes it so amazing. The song starts off slow and slowly builds into an explosion of a gorgeous chorus of voices and horns. Then slows down again. The lyrics are heartbreaking. Talking of a love so strong, no matter how hard things get. That love remains.

Florida - Patty's vocals in this song are flawless once again. This song really tells you a story. Something we pretty much all go through at least once in our lives, one way or the other. Loneliness. How we all do what we have to do to just survive.

Mother of God - This song reminds me of my Grandmother. Kind of the story of a woman. The piano in this song is gorgeous. As is the way Patty sings with a lot of emotion in her voice. As if she were almost about to cry. I think the song is about women and their roles as "mothers." How we will do anything for our children, no matter the cost. Just like the "Mother of God." The cycle goes on and on. I think all women, weather we are aware of it or not are connected to each other by our ability to give life.

Icicles - An amazing song to end the album with. She took us through a journey the whole album and in this song, you can feel that journey coming to an end. To me this song sums it all up by telling us that everything you have to go through in life is worth it. no matter how hard or what the cost. You will find what you are looking for. "You'll be glad you got lost in the glow of love."

For those like myself who find Norah Jones' music bland, here is an alternative. Patty Griffin sings as though her life depends on it, and perhaps ours too. These songs contain memorable melodies and penetrating, at times mysterious lyrics, and it's one of those albums where there's no filler. I get goose bumps from certain music, when a combination of melody and voice somehow transforms what I'm hearing into more than "just music". It doesn't happen often. The classical composer Gustav Mahler is good at giving me goosebumps. Likewise, I get goosebumps in several places on this album. Mahler and Patty Griffin have almost nothing in common musically, but listening to both I feel as though they put me in direct touch with something beautiful, unsettling, and deep.

i had the realization as i sat down with this album that patty griffin will probably be the best songwriter i will hear in my lifetime. she achieves this through the combination of simple lyrics and simple melodies (who would have thought this combination could earn her the status of best songwriter in the world). it's impossible to explain what it is about her. there's the voice, a voice that can laugh and cry (though it cries most of the time) and cut into you like a knife. sometimes she'll sing a phrase and i'll just break down crying. "useless desires," for instance, is a series of phrases that seared me one by one, culminating in "waiting on the train tracks, but the train never comes back ... i'm the last one hanging around." same goes for "florida" - "isn't it hard sometimes, isn't it lonely, how I still hang around here when there's nothing to hold me"(can you tell i'm feeling after college, living at home loneliness). these are the two best tracks, lyrically. the thing about patty, though, is that it doesn't matter if her lyrics are startlingly original. some people could look at "when it don't come easy" and "kite song" and say they were the most trite, cliched lyrics they've ever seen. but she sells them, she makes you love them and hold them close to your heart.

my only regret is that i was heavily exposed to "silver bell" (the unrealesed gem of an experimental record). i might have been married to that version of "top of the world," maybe because it was so different from the dixie chicks version. but this song may be the best i've ever heard: lyrically, musically. this version is one of many. virgin ears would be just as floored as i was listening to silver bell.

do i think she can do better than this record? absolutely. but i hate to compare her records because i find little fault with anything. my only complaint about this one is the first two songs. she shouldn't try to be bonnie raitt and bob dylan when being herself is enough to be the best singer/songwriter alive.

this woman has never let me down. i am indebted to her. i apologize for trying to sing like her. but she has the kind of songs that impact everything you do. if you're a singer songwriter, your voice will naturally lean towards hers, and your melodies, too. she must not be listened to enough because if everyone was listening to her, the music in this world would be much better.

I have all of Patty's album, including a single from her never-released one, and I find Impossible Dream to be generally captivating, if not consistently wonderful. She starts off with "Love Throw a Line," a gospel-flavored, hand-clapping, foot-stomping song. It has a different feel than the rest of the album, which is filled with folky ballads, intimate story songs. It works. "Standing," another gospel-influenced song, doesn't work so well for me, not because I don't like the song (I do), but because its sound is somewhat jarring compared to the songs it follows. But I can't think of anywhere else I would have put it where it would have worked better. It might also depend on my mood because sometimes I don't find it disturbing at all. This song and "Top of the World" were originally supposed to be on the never-released Silver Bells album.

The thing I find most jarring about the album is the clip of Patty's parents singing "Impossible Dream" smack in the middle of the record. It breaks up the flow. And the flow of this album is so important and so beautiful. It's like a river carrying us along, allowing us to look into the windows of the houses we pass and peek into people's lives.

That's not to say the songs sound alike. Like any river there are twists and turns, and the current is faster in some places than in others. The sunny-sounding "Useless Desires" follows the melancholy church sound of "Standing." "Top of the World" is a standout with a darker sound. It's followed by "Rowing Song" which has the feel of a round to it and wonderful horns.

The highlight for me is "When It Don't Come Easy," which is heartbreakingly beautiful lyrically and sonically. I have to admit the last 3 songs kind of fade into each other for me. But when I take the time to listen to them, they're beautiful too. About 5 minutes into "Mother of God," Patty changes the song, slowing it down, softening her voice, and making the strings more prominent. It's wistful, a combination hope and hopelessness.

All said, I like this album a lot. It's not necessarily Patty's best work (though it has a few of her best songs), but it's a wonderful album and another must for fans.

I don't feel the need to review the CD since it has been reviewed before and if you are thinking of buying this import then you are allready a fan. The three live tracks are taken from a October 2003 concert at the Ryman. Her Live album at the Ryman according to that cd was recorded Jan 30 2003. So its all new stuff. The description on the disc and website are a bit misleading. Emmylou Harris only appears on Truth #2, not all the songs as the sticker implies. But the live tracks are still worth getting if you are a Patty fan. Just don't get them if you think Emmylou is on all the bonus songs.

Patty Griffin is one of those artists who seem to discover songs rather than write them; her music has a magical, eternal quality that is not easy to identify. Is it her arrangements, which combine delicate, understated acoustic tones with a refreshingly tasteful use of electronic and synthesised sounds? Or her lyrics, which mercilessly lay bare our hidden fears and useless desires? Whatever it is, Patty Griffin has created a sound that is entirely her own, and never has this been more beautifully clear than in Impossible Dream. Darker and more inward looking than 1000 Kisses, there is a recurring theme of frustration and inability to find contentment, indicated by the title of both the album and the fifth track, Useless Desires. Lyrically Patty is still on form, with her unique ability to wrap up such simple sentiments with wonderful charm and clarity: "We're just like anyone else/We just want a little bit of sun for ourselves/And a little bit of rain to make it all grow/maybe a minute or two to get lost in the glow of love". Her foray into the blues, as in Love Throw a Line and Standing, should be seen as a sunny spell in this otherwise exquisitely melancholic collection. Highlights are, as ever, the most simple and moving songs, such as Icicles and Kite Song. This album is a celebration of beauty, love and emotion; if any of those things interest you, Impossible Dream won't be leaving your CD player any time soon.

I have NEVER bought an album before that literally took my breath away. Not to mention it gave me chills and almost made me cry...at the first listen. I just kept waiting for a song that I would skip past, and there are none on this album. Patty is a lyrical genius, her voice is amongst the top female voices out there, and she can't write a bad tune. Every song on this album not only is entertaining and beautiful, but it takes you somewhere and makes you have all kinds of feelings. All the songs are unique and have a different flavor from each other. Patty can do folk, blues, gospel, and she still rocks. Kite Song and Rowing Song are like child hood lullubyes, Cold as it Gets is pure and raw folk, Useless Desires and Florida send you soaring and everything else cuts you deep.

How can someone be this good? How can such a songwriter get this close to the nerve? How can such a singer wrap her hands around your heart every time she opens her mouth?

Ever since LIVING WITH GHOSTS and especially her duet with Julie Miller on Austin City Limits, I was hooked. How can one resist?

This album is a bit less accessible than the last two but every bit as beautiful, poetic, and unique. Mysterious, in fact.

And that use of a mournful tuba! Who'd have thought?

We all owe her a minimum of 1000 kisses.

I now know what it must be like to be heroin addict. Since buying this cd a month ago, I have been unable to keep from hearing it at least once a day. I am particularly addicted to
"Useless Desires" and "When it Don't Come Easy". I do not believe I have ever heard two songs on the same cd that have ever had this effect on me. And now, sadly, I am discovering how great the remainder of the album is. I may never be able to get it out of my changer. At least I still have five other slots.

The combination of Patty's writing and vocalizations is something
so rare, I can't think of any current singers other than Don Henley who compares. Buy this cd and you will surely be compelled to explore more of Patty's undeniably brilliant work.