On the record: Jim White – Misfits Jubilee
As the nights draw in and the country settles in for a second lockdown, it’s a relief to listen to a record that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Jim White’s latest album, Misfits Jubilee (produced by Loose Records), is a mix of lucid tales of drug smuggling teenagers and encounters with Big Foot, and a sprinkling of US politics and self-aware national stereotypes.
White (real name Michael Pratt) has released seven albums before Jubilee. The 10 tracks in his latest are, broadly, Americana, with other influences thrown in. But this isn’t the brooding, weighty Americana of Lucinda Williams; it’s part-dark comedy and surrealism, and part storytelling, with canvasses set across small-town America.
“I’m fond of such foolish conjecture,” White sings on Wonders Never Cease. And he is. One track includes a tale of interacting with a Sasquatch, all played out over some excellent banjo work. The track mindbogglingly finishes with a popular YouTube meme playing off in the distance.
The record is irreverent, off-beat and only occasionally veers into more serious territory. The final track, The Divided States of America bemoans “That goddamn Fox News, is always on.”Midway through the song, White’s political views take the stage as a news clip about gun crime in the US follow a canned mention of the number of billionaires there are in the country (536 apparently). Despite White delivering unashamedly American music, he clearly despairs at how he views the US. After the news segment White sings “Hear Them AKs a’popping, See our school kid’s a’dropping, Our core of decency gone.”
Whether sober or frivolous, White’s lyrics are compelling and remain lodged in your head, evoking the America of Sons of Anarchy or Hell or High Water. Take Highway of Lost Hats, which follows a couple speeding in a “hopped up Pontiac GTO,” singing about loving the girl that has fallen asleep on the driver, as he drives on the “blacktop for miles and miles.” The police pull over the driver, and the song takes a more sinister turn. Is the girl actually asleep?
At times the record is a little jarring. The music accompanying it can feel almost slapstick. Still, the longer you listen to Misfits Jubilee, the more you realise that the value in this record is in the world’s that White’s lyrics build, whether serious or silly. And because of that, it inspires a trawl through his back catalogue.