Twenty-one years ago this Oct. 1, Shawn Colvin’s Grammy award-winning album, “A Few Small Repairs” was released. This September the album was reissued with seven new bonus tracks for its 20th anniversary, following an extensive campaign on PledgeMusic. It will be followed by a national tour starting on the album’s anniversary.
Though Colvin’s recording career began in 1989 with the album “Steady On,” “A Few Small Repairs” garnered the highest critical acclaim and commercial success. It features her biggest hit to date, “Sunny Came Home,” which Colvin declares in liner notes to be, “A song I’ll be happy to play for the rest of my days”.
The album, remastered for the new release, opens with “Sunny Came Home,” (“It’s time for a few small repairs she said/Sunny came home with a vengeance”) a song about a woman committing arson, inspired by the album’s cover art (“Setting the World on Fire” by Julie Speed.) Its opening mandolin riff is mesmerizing, drawing you into a blissful trance for the rest of the song. The album moves forward with “Get Out of this House” and “The Facts About Jimmy,” touching upon the resentment and insecurities within a toxic relationship. Though “A Few Small Repairs” was written following the end of Colvin’s first marriage, Jeff Slate, songwriter and music journalist, points out in the liner notes, “to simply refer to the album as a ‘break-up record’ does it a disservice.”
The album reaches its second half with the haunting lament “If I Were Brave” which Slate deems to be “as affecting a meditation on the universality of loneliness as there ever has been on a record.”
It is a song for anyone who is searching for a purpose, for anyone who feels alone, for anyone who needs to be humbled. Part of the magic of Shawn Colvin’s music is its universality, acting as a hand reaching out for anyone who needs to grab hold of one.
The nostalgic “Wichita Skyline” is a view of Colvin’s picturesque childhood hometown (which is actually Vermillion, SD) and the cautionary “Suicide Alley” follows. Colvin eventually comes to a triumphant, unapologetic conclusion of the album with “Nothin On Me,” a declaration of victory after surviving the end of a relationship unscathed. The bonus tracks on the new release are all live performances by Colvin from the years following the original release of the album. Naturally, the first of the bonus tracks is “Sunny Came Home (Live at KFOG),” with performances of other tracks from the album such as “Trouble,” about struggling with depression, and another captivating performance of “If I Were Brave.” The last of the bonus tracks, “Ricochet in Time” is from Colvin’s debut album Steady On, and as it details the passing of time during Colvin’s early years as a musician, it is the perfect note to end on.
Colvin’s PledgeMusic campaign has sold out for the most part (a bonus EP entitled “A Few Extra Repairs” and a DVD of live performances and promo videos from the original album release are no longer available) but there are still rare items being offered such as vinyl test pressings of the album (its first time being release on vinyl) signed replicas of the notebook where she wrote the songs for the album, and even voodoo dolls crafted by Colvin herself. There are also interviews with Colvin about the album and her nearly 40-year career as a musician.
Colvin will be performing two shows with her full band in Colorado, one in Palmer Lake on Oct. 18, and one in Boulder on Oct. 20. Information about the album and shows can be found at Colvin’s website. http://www.shawncolvin.com
