Some artists spend decades helping other musicians tell their stories. Others eventually find themselves compelled to tell their own. Glenn Morrow has done both. A lynchpin in Hoboken, N.J.’s storied music scene, Morrow is the 40-year steward of Bar/None Records, a former frontman of the Individuals and Rage To Live and a veteran music journalist. He’s spent much of his career championing independent music, and with Glenn Morrow’s Cry For Help, he’s back in the game, as always, on his own terms.
Balancing jangle-rock immediacy with a quietly unsettling lyrical undercurrent, “Sweater Weather” is the latest focus track from Our Final Album: Vol. 1, due July 17 via Bar/None. Recorded with producer by Ray Ketchem (Elk City, Medoza Line, Guided By Voices) at his Magic Door Studio in Montclair, N.J., the album features Hoboken scene veterans Mike Rosenberg, Ric Sherman and Ron Metz, along with keyboardist Andy Burton (Rufus Wainwright, Ian Hunter, John Mayer).
On the surface, “Sweater Weather” is inviting enough, propelled by the kind of melodic craftsmanship that’s become second nature to Morrow after decades in the business. Beneath the sheen, however, is a sly meditation on technology and dependence.
“It was inspired by the Richard Brautigan poem ‘All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace,’” says Morrow. “The narrator of the song is perhaps a bit too trusting in his love for the machines that are taking care of him.”
We’re proud to premiere Glenn Morrow’s Cry For Help’s “Sweater Weather.”
—Hobart Rowland