Carnival - Kasey Chambers
Open up the sky, all gather ‘round
Praise the lord and take a look at what I found
I’ve got a love that’s as big as a raging storm
I got walls coming down that I don’t need no more
I got a sign on the door that says ‘lonely don’t live here anymore’
Carnival is the last Kasey Chambers solo album in my collection, and my personal favorite. It’s also, as far as I can tell, the happiest of her albums, with more songs about contentment and appreciation than about heartbreak and sorrow. Even ostensibly sad songs, such as Surrender or Hard Road, sound more sweet than bitter to me. When I heard the album for the first time, I remember wondering at the shift in mood. One line from the song Dangerous seems to encapsulate the shift in my mind: “We are dangerous no more.” It seems that, one way or another, healing has taken place. If that’s just a projection of my own feelings in reaction to the song, perhaps it means that I have healed somewhat since I first started listening.
Among the happy songs on the album is Sign on the Door, quoted above, which jubilantly celebrates the wonder of newfound love. You Make Me Sing is another good love song, and both follow Chambers’s usual pattern of hyperbolic admiration of the beloved, as well as mixing dark and light imagery. In Light Up a Candle, Chambers sets aside her long standing habit of songs about hopeless devotion, and sings about not being especially passionate one way or another. The narrator in this song is open to love, but not falling for it yet; this is refreshingly, although I rarely feel that way myself.
I Got You Now echoes some of the sentiments in the song Barricades & Brickwalls, which I described as a stalker song, but somehow does not bother me as much. Perhaps because I interpret it as being an expression of consensual, reciprocal sexual feeling, rather than an unwelcome invasion. It’s not an easy line to draw, I know; behavior that would be considered abusive if unwelcome can be a thrilling expression of love if it is consensual. And love, even in the best of times, is not always “wholesome.”
In the tradition of songs like We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel and It’s The End of the World As We Know It by R.E.M., Nothing At All contains verses full of rapidly-delivered, disjointed imagery alongside a slower, catchier chorus. Like many of Chambers’s earlier songs it has sad words and a happy sound, but in this case the juxtaposition doesn’t seem jarring or unsuited. It may be my favorite track.
Shortly after releasing Carnival, Kasey Chambers collaborated on an album with her then-husband Shane Nicholson. This will be the subject of my next review.
Next: Rattlin’ Bones
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