So Runs the World Away

Josh Ritter | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 4, 2010)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Pytheas
• ASIN: B003C5FMH6
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,914 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Vinyl LP pressing. 2010 release, the sixth studio album from the American singer/songwriter. So Runs The World Away marks the beginning of what Josh calls a ''new period'' in his life, and it's reflected in songs that he describes as ''more detailed and feel as if they were painted in oil on large canvasses.'' --This text refers to the Vinyl edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars After an unprecedented dry spell, Josh Ritter produces his most ambitious -- and most rewarding -- CD, May 4, 2010

By 

Jesse Kornbluth "Head Butler" (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: So Runs the World Away (Audio CD)

I'm one of those rabid fans who thinks Josh Ritter belongs in the same sentence as Springsteen, Simon, Dylan and Cohen --- but the first few times I played his new CD, 'So Runs the World Away', I was seriously unhappy. It was just too different from 2007's 'The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter'. And "Historical Conquests" also gave me trouble, for it was too different from 'Animal Years', which came out in 2006.

I should be used to this discomfort now. Josh Ritter doesn't repeat. There is no sequel to "Wolves." There will never be another "Kathleen." Fans hoping that "Good Man" will be followed by "Great Man" hope in vain.

Josh Ritter takes leaps. It's what he does, it's his signature. That constant but asymmetrical flow of creativity makes him happy --- more to the point, it keeps him alive. Josh Ritter condemned to repeat himself would be a tragedy. This guy needs freedom to create the next new thing like he needs oxygen.

You can listen to Josh Ritter's music and think it's bouncy and fun, though sometimes a little dark and jagged for pop music. Or you can dig in. That is, you can spend time with a Josh Ritter CD as you might with a book that happens to be set to music --- you underline, make notes, reread.

I've been listening to 'So Runs the World Away' for a few months now. "Coming to terms with it" would be more accurate. Some songs are keepers from the get-go: for a rocking affirmation of love, "Lantern" may have extremely unusual lyrics ("The living is desperate/ Precarious and mean/ And getting by is so hard/ That even the rocks are picked clean/ And the bones of small contention/ Are the only food the hungry find"), but it takes repeated play to note that. Other songs are instantly amusing for the musical quotations: a Leonard Cohen piano riff, a lilting line reminiscent of Paul Simon, glockenspiel worthy of Springsteen or Phil Spector. And then there are the songs that challenge you right off --- you'll know them when you hear them.

'So Runs the World Away' is so ambitious and ambitious in so many ways that it may be hard to connect the songs. I've done that thinking, and this is what I got. Change is coming, and we're on our own: "If there's a Book of Jubillations/ We'll have to write it for ourselves." Not everyone will make it: "And around me as I swam/ The drifters who'd gone under." But this is Josh Ritter, kids, the poet laureate of possibility: "New lands for the living/ I could make it if I tried/ I closed my eyes/ I kept on swimming."

Very bracing, very helpful --- but that's just my interim sense of the CD. Other listeners, other takeaways. The pleasure's in the discovery, the thinking, the interacting --- experiences that only the very best art can deliver. And 'So Runs the World Away' delivers. Well, maybe not on every track. But give me a year. The songs I don't get now will surely be my favorites by then --- and when the next Josh Ritter CD comes out, I'll be sad there aren't more like them.

The big surprise: This CD was different from all other Ritter CDs in a way you'd never guess --- one of music's best writers had trouble writing. My interview with Josh Ritter started there.....

Jesse Kornbluth: You've written about a "reckoning" after your last record. You had a great career, a band that never falters, a smart, enthusiastic audience. But "a shadow" fell and "nothing felt original." Josh Ritter in despair? That has to come as a shock to anyone who saw you perform during that period --- as your fans know, no one is happier at a Josh Ritter concert than Josh Ritter. Now that you're on the other side of that valley, can you see what the problem was?

Josh Ritter: The writing side is the fuel for the engine. Writing stands or falls on its confidence. Some people can't go out unless they're in a nice suit. Well, I can't go onstage unless I feel my songs are alive. To sing songs that are older when new ones aren't coming --- that's scary. And I was there. Nothing was coming. I was spending all my energy to get through each night.

JK: How long did that last?

JR: It actually lasted a very long time, at least six or seven months. I go onstage to win, but that feeling has to come from inside of me --- I wasn't feeling that at the end of the night.

JK: I'd bet my hands that no one who saw you perform had a clue. Who knew?

JR: The band always knows everything. But it doesn't matter who knows it. Writing is solitary, lonely. When people ask, "What was your day like?" you can't share that you looked out the window and nothing came. There was a time I spent watching a dog out the window. It was just me watching this strange dog in a stranger's backyard. At a certain point the dog noticed me noticing it. It started looking up at me as if it was saying, "What, already?! What?!" I didn't know what to tell that dog. It was hell.

JK: I know you to be a voracious reader, listener, viewer --- you've got a huge appetite for information and ideas. Did diving into other writers and artists help?

JR: You throw everything down the well --- books, people, your friends and your enemies, hoping that something will come out. I ran, I ran like crazy --- I tried everything that had worked before. I believe there's a sponge in everyone's brain that they can squeeze. I knew the sponge was in there somewhere, I was casting about in my brain for it, but nothing was coming.

JK: And out of all that came an idea for a story --- about a mummy and an archeologist. Why that?

JR: There was an archetype to it. It had been explored, but in that great way that feels as if there is a ton left to look at. And the story had humor. So I went to the library and read about mummies. I loved the way the Egyptians believed in the technology. I thought that was pretty. And I thought: We can understand that belief in a person coming back to life out of love. Anyone I want to know can understand that on a fundamental level.

JK: Asking a writer to explain his writing is exactly as rude as asking a Wyoming rancher how many acres he owns. That said, let me be a boor and ask you: Once you started writing these new songs, how did it go?

JR: Tons of fragments. Writing for me is all about fragments. Nothing comes fully sprung from my head. I take the tadpoles of songs and nurse them. A few survive from the bunch and grow up into kittens. A few of these survive and grow up into feral dogs and out of these dogs springs a fully grown polar bear. All the songs that don't make it I throw on the floor and wait for other lines to eat them up. I never feel I'm wasting my words. As effortless as writing can feel, good writing always takes time. On this record I really learned that in a deep-tissue way.

JK: The title of the CD is from "Hamlet" (Act III, Scene 2): "Why, let the stricken deer go weep/ The hart ungalled play/ For some must watch, while some must sleep/ So runs the world away." Connect the dots, please.

JR: The title is always the last thing for me. You're looking for something that encompasses the record as you envisioned it. When nothing sticks, I go to Shakespeare and put on a play recorded by Orson Welles's company. I don't listen to the words as much as to the rhythm. That line felt beautiful to me -- in all these songs, I feel the magic and fatalism of a world about to change for everyone.

JK: A 19th century steamboat on the cover, songs about exploration, physical and spiritual, on the record --- there's fun along the way, but there's also something very serious here, what you've called "looking out across the drifts of nothing." What's up?

JR: Exploration is a solitary thing. It's never about finding, it's about looking. Atlantis, Eldorado, the source of the Nile --- the people who made those explorations did them because that's who they were. Exploration is a metaphor for our lives, which are solitary. And that's terrifying.

JK: Mr. Ritter, you just got married!

JR: A man needs a home. And that has to be enough. You're not asking someone to be completely satisfied. Our homes are what we reach out for when we're in danger of spinning off into space. We've all got to walk that lonesome valley --- to be close with someone is to know they too have one to walk. And that's enough.

JK: In style, these songs are all over the map. What they have it common, it seems, is that each presses against the limits of its form. Is it fair to say this is your most ambitious record yet?

JR: I felt freed by the fact that I'm not working for anyone anymore. [Josh has left his record company.] It's me and the people I work with and the limits of our hopes for what we're doing. When you're not trying to get stuff on the radio, it's very liberating. What happens to music after it's made has nothing to do with what happened in the studio --- there's no use trying to figure out why. Coming to that realization was a nice thing. Ambition is completely up to you --- and, given that, I will push things.

JK: The band is, as ever, terrific, but this time out, the arrangements are much more layered, much more significant. I hear tympani, glockenspiel, synthesizer, a few background singers who sound like the entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir --- everything but a sackbut.

JR: Only because we couldn't afford one! Musically, this was the most exciting record I've made. On "Historical Conquest," we said, "Let's collapse some atoms together and make a big explosion." Now we know we can do that. This time, we knew we were making an exploration that could take us to a new place.

JK: You're starting a tour of Dylanesque length. I think back to your early days, a time of incessant... Read more ›

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So Runs the World Away - Definitely a Cure and Not a Curse!, May 5, 2010

By 

Kyle Anderson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: So Runs the World Away (Audio CD)

Many of my favorite singer/songwriters create a great album and then never live up to their own hype set by previous amazing records. This is not the case here. Josh Ritter continues to never disappoint! Every record he makes sounds different, each one is unique, as he continues to reinvent himself.

When I first listened to "So Runs the World Away" - my first reaction was I am a little disappointed, this is not Animal Years and this is not Historical Conquests! But after my second listen through I loved the album because it was something totally new, very much unlike the previous two albums. Josh and his band are never scared to take risks - and they almost always yield high rewards. He is not looking to become famous or sell out to the man - he remains true to himself. Truly an amazing feat in today's music industry.

Most of the songs (music and lyrics) are deep, poetic and take you on a journey you never thought you would go on but once you hop on you don't want to leave.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One step closer to folk legend.., May 4, 2010

By 

Brandon Pfeltz (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: So Runs the World Away (Audio CD)

Fresh from his Historical Conquests, So Runs The World Away is the sixth studio album from the Idaho-born and soon to be folk legend, Josh Ritter. Released on May 4, 2010, So Runs The World Away is more than just a brilliant album, it also sings like a beautiful story.

Known not only for his catchy melodies, but also for his enthralling lyrics, this album is no different. It contains some of the best material that Ritter has written thus far, which is a huge accomplishment considering the man's previous musical accomplishments. The album soars, and it's hard not to close your eyes and envision an enchanting story to go along with the lyrical images that Ritter presents. Listening to the album is like reading a quirky, yet charming book, the only difference being that one takes hours while the other clocks in at roughly 57 minutes.

The album smoothly sails to a start with the intimate "Change of Time", a beautifully simplistic song with a chorus consisting almost entirely of two words, "Time, love." After the pleasing crescendo that brings the song to a quiet end comes the piano-driven "The Curse", which is your average woman and mummy love story. The quirkiness of the song accented with the impressive lyrics of a woman discovering and starting a romance with a mummy in the pyramids of Egypt. The mummy eventually comes to life and takes the world by storm, while the woman slowly dies. Obviously not your average radio-friendly pop song. However, it is songs like this that make Ritter a true diamond in the rough, his ability to unite lyrics, stories, and melodies is a true gift.

The album is very diverse, and Ritter has clearly chosen to experiment a bit from his usual americana sing-songy image. The song "The Remnant" does just that, with Ritter taking a more aggressive edge than his usual self. While the song is enjoyable, it can't help but feel a bit out of place with the rest of the album. Along with the "Rattling Locks" which has a ghostly chorus of "Black hole, black hole.." the songs present quite a different side to the songwriter. The song is driven by a beat of drumsticks smacked together, presenting an eerie yet exciting feeling. That side is gritty, it's raw, and it's quite refreshingly unexpected.

The album contains many great songs that fit in quite nicely with Ritter's catalogue, such as the charming "Lark" and the comforting "Long Shadows". Additionally, the song "Lantern" sounds very Bruce Springsteen-esque, with lovely lyrics and a prevalently catchy melody. However, one of the biggest standouts of the album is the epic "Another New World," which tells the story of an explorer trying to top his previous adventures and discover a new land which lays somewhere beyond the icy arctic. It is this heartbreaking song that most brilliantly showcases Ritter's lyrical genius. The man in the song has nothing in the world, save for his ship. Along the journey, he loses his crew, and eventually must burn the ship to keep himself alive. The hauntingly epic song is one of Ritter's greatest achievements.

"We talked of the other new worlds we'd discovered as she gave up her body to me,
As I chopped up her mainsail for timbre, I told her of all that we still had to see" -Another New World

The album remains at an elevated height with the hymn-like folk mash up song, "Folk Bloodbath". The orchestration and harmonies for this song stand out as perhaps the best on the album. Additionally, the abstract lamenting of "See How Man Was Made" and the immensely catchy americana song "Southern Pacifica" leave little doubt that Josh Ritter is well on his way to becoming something of a folk legend. None of the lyrics on the album are forced, and they are presented with a southern charm and certain honesty that is prevalent with any Josh Ritter album. The second to last track on the album "Orbital" is a perfect example of this, a witty love song with lyrics that feel so honest and relatable you'd feel as if you wrote them yourself.

"Louis said to Delia, `That's the problem with life,
People are always leaving just as other folks arrive.'
The angels laid her away." - Folk Bloodbath

Simply put, So Runs The World Away is another fantastic triumph from Josh Ritter. There are very few weak moments of the album, and like any strong ship, it sails despite its tiny imperfections.

Final Rating: 4.5 out of 5