- Welcome to Daytrotter
- Wedding Clothes
- Cold Hands
- Keep Shakin’
- The Middle
- Pretty Leaves
When Somebody’s Darling lead singer Amber Farris sings, “I guess it’s back to the bottle again,” it’s not looked at as a return to the bottom, though the two words could be mistaken for one another here. It’s not supposed to suggest a total emotional breakdown is about to commence, but there’s going to be a bender and these things are just going to have to work themselves out. The bottle is that surefire shoulder to cry on, the best listener and something of a dysfunctional pick-me-up that isn’t supposed to work right away. The brown drink is going to let a person slosh and splash a little bit before they are ever able to yank themselves out of their stupors. The people in this Dallas, Texas, band’s songs who turn to the stuff – and they all do – believe in it. It’s been their reliable companion for the longest time that they’re not sure they’d be where they are today without its consolation for all these many years.
The people that Farris, guitarist David Ponder, drummer Nate Wedan, keyboardist Mike Talley and bassist Wade Cofer bring to life are those who have seen the floor, been knocked down to it more times than they can remember and after some bottles have been consumed, they’ve managed to pick themselves off of those floors, to examine the new shape that they find themselves in. It never seems to be the same shape. It’s always something new, slightly more damaged, but reminiscent. Farris is a force as a singer, as a conveyor of hopefulness and of despair. She gets the bottle. She understands the bottle and she understands that the sun comes up every morning. It always does.
She represents the sorts of blue-collared, working class people who never miss a day of work, who punch in and punch out and punch through the wall when life gets in the way, when it gets shipwrecked. They’re working themselves to the bone for their kids, for their family and it leaves them little time for anything else. They’re working to their deaths, picking up those paychecks on Fridays and heading straight to the bank, the grocery store and the bar. They’re struggling through their hot days, just getting by. They’re going to the hospital either to witness some last breaths taken by mom, dad, grandma or grandpa or hitting up the nursery to see a new life for the first time. They’re getting spun around by the ferocious tempo of life. Farris sings about “just waiting on my fever to break,” while maintaining a feeling that “the end of the world is coming today.” The fever breaking might be too little, too late, but it still would be better if it were gone.