Gillian Welch & David Rawlings Contrast Contentment With Life’s Ticking Clock on Woodland

There’s always been something unmistakably kismet about the musical partnership of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings—the latter’s tasteful production choices and intricate guitar picking (not to mention harmonies) perfectly complementing Welch’s lightly twanging, quietly commanding voice. On 2001’s Time (The Revelator), they proved beyond doubt that they were an all-time folk duo, penning 10 stone-cold classics that spoke to love, longing, a search for meaning and living life on one’s own terms.

23 years later and the duo’s partnership has only gotten tighter—a fact that is immediately evident from the title of their new album. Named after the Woodland Studios the pair have owned since 2001, the LP is also their first collection of original material to be jointly billed under both their names. Upon casual listening, the album (at least the tracks led by Welch) recall Time (and also 2011’s The Harrow & the Harvest). Like those albums, Woodland is free of pretenses, casually revelatory and aided by clean, unfussy production courtesy of Rawlings. But upon closer examination, it’s clear that, thematically, there’s a wealth of distance between the albums.

On Time’s most widely recognized song, “Everything is Free,” Welch sang of unbowed idealism (“I’m gonna do it anyway / Even if it doesn’t pay) and simple contentment (“I don’t need to run around / I’ll just stay at home”). On Woodland, by contrast, the tribulations of life and middle age weigh heavily—nearly every song is haunted by either the specter of death or that of aging (and sometimes both). On the Guy Clark-tribute “Hashtag,” fit with French horns and strings, Welch and Rawlings confront these heavy themes head-on while reflecting on how celebrity influences the dimensions of mortality (“Singers like you and I are only news when we die”). “Hashtag” also stands out for being Woodland’s most nakedly vulnerable tune.

In perhaps the album’s most haunting moment, Rawlings looks down at the boots of (presumably) Clark and opines, “Jesus Christ, that’s some mighty big ones to try to fill / Never can and never will,” sounding audibly gobsmacked—and maybe even slightly horrified. Rawlings and Welch have written so many great odes to meaningful connection—the kind of kindred spark that can kindle between like-minded individuals and serve as a reminder of what really matters in life. “Hashtag” explores the inevitable flipside of that; the heaviness of grief and the gnawing hole left by someone’s irreplaceable absence.

Despite the gravity of the subject matter which Woodland concerns itself with, it would be wrong to describe the album as a downbeat listen. Warm, tough, tender and resilient all at once, the album is illuminated by memories of old while still finely attuned to present reality. Recollections of long road trips, old dreams and familiar faces add warmth to the album. As do surprising flashes of dry humor—on the opener “Empty Trainload of Sky,” Welch looks up at the clouds and sings, “Was it spirit? Was it solid? / Did I ditch that class in college?”

In March 2020, tornadoes ripped through Nashville, necessitating extensive repairs to Welch and Rawlings’s Woodland Studio. The duo managed to salvage all of their music during the storm, and it may have even provided inspiration for what would become Woodland, the album—a record finely attuned to the threat of destruction. “The Day The Mississippi Died,” a string-led lament that recalls folk traditionals, foretells both the death of a person and the eventually drying up of the Mississippi river. Once again, Welch and Rawlings use humor to elevate what could be unbearably heavy in another’s hands (“The subject’s entertaining but the rhymes are pretty rough”).

Still, despite such flashes of humor, there’s no doubting the gravity of what Gillian Welch and David Rawlings sing about across Woodland. For this reason, the album’s lovely, unlikely closer feels particularly subversive. “Dry your eyes, don’t you cry, ain’t gonna rain no more,” declares Welch on “Howdy Howdy,” as if trying to gain composure after a particularly emotional episode. Over a plucky banjo, Rawlings and Welch intertwine their voices to deliver an ode to eternal love: “You and me are always gonna be howdy howdy / You and me, always walk that lonesome valley.” Sometimes, staring down the apocalypse doesn’t have to result in despair—instead, it can just make you profoundly thankful for everything you’ve had and everything you have yet to lose.