Last week, singer-songwriter Jamie Lin Wilson announced her new album Jumping Over Rocks. The sophomore follow-up to 2015's Holidays & Wedding Rings will officially be released October 26. Additionally, she has shared a new song, the introspective and melancholic "The Being Gone."
Written with fellow Texas Music songwriter Mike Ethan Messick, Wilson taps into the long, quiet and solemn ride home of parents and spouses after an extended period away from home. It finds Wilson dejected and a bit defeated and fatigued by the road. She's openly questioning the unintended consequences her career is having on her home life. As she's driving, she's measuring the effects—not just on her family, but on herself as well.
Wilson's crystalline vocals are pensive and filled with a touch of dead-tired exhaustion (in a good way). She's missing her family and you hear it in her voice. It's what defines "The Being Gone."
The sweeping chorus "We've been holding it together, we've been waking up alone. I can't tell if all this leaving is worth the being gone," is as heartwrenching as ever. You feel as though you're riding shotgun with Wilson as she's making a call back home with one hand and gripping the steering wheel with the other. She also delivers some incredibly clever wordplay on lines such as "All this sense/cents that I've been making makes no cents/sense to me at all." It's Wilson at her best.
Wilson, the former lead vocalist for The Gougers and the often paused, but not disbanded The Trishas, recorded Jumping Over Rocks over the course of a four-day period at Arlyn Studios in Austin with producer Scott Davis. It features the likes of Charlie Sexton, Richard Millsap, Trevor Nealon, Cody Angel, and Courtney Patton. In Addition to Messick, the new album features co-writes with Brian Wright, Evan Felker of Turnpike Troubadours and Jack Ingram, who also joins her for an incredibly delicate and stunning interpretation of Guy Clark's "Instant Coffee Blues."
Much like the emotionally gut-wrenching "The Being Gone," Wilson's Jumping Over Rocks finds the songwriter examining the ups and downs of relationships, the maturation of individuals and how life takes its toll on us all with sharp character studies and deeply contemplative sketches. Her demanding vocals are out in front while a bed of rich and rootsy arrangements lay beneath.
Jumping Over Rocks Track List
1. "Faithful & True" (Wilson, Jack Ingram)
2. "The Being Gone" (Wilson, Mike Ethan Messick)
3. "Oklahoma Stars" (Wilson, Evan Felker)
4. "Eyes for You" (Wilson)
5. "Everybody's Moving Slow" (Wilson)
6. "Instant Coffee Blues" with Jack Ingram (Guy Clark)
7. "Death & Life" (Wilson)
8. "Run" (Wilson)
9. "In a Wink" (Wilson, Brian Wright)
10. "If I Told You" (Wilson)
