And in the best songs here, the narrator gazes at herself. The agenda here, the thing to be examined and - just maybe - repaired, is herself. If it were,Ī Few Small Repairs would not have two-decade legs. The real object of Colvin’s ire, of course, is not the partner who may have wronged her. A break-up song, sure (“When you feel you’re lying in a prison cell / It’ll rock you just like thunder”), but she admits, “I used to get drunk to get my spark / And it used to work just fine / It made me wretched but it gave me heart / I miss Jimmy like I miss my wine”. “The Facts About Jimmy” is tender, built on a gentle guitar figure and a set of shimmering Wurlitzer electric piano chords in which the narrator tells the story of Jimmy, a charismatic loser who she just can’t quit. “Get Out of This House” rocks as Colvin demands that her lover leave, with verses separated by bluesy harmonica, but it’s the bridge that gets you, the bass thumping in double time: “If I see you again it will be in my head at the end of a cloud / If you see me again it will be in your head telling you to get out.” The anger is mediated by a sense of poetry.īut here’s the thing: even if these two opening songs are leavened with ambiguity, they remain songs of anger. It has a funky verse, a pop chorus, and an instrumental hook played on a mandolin. The tune kills, though, because it blends canny lyric storytelling with music that is gorgeously ambiguous: both pop-sunny and shot through with a minor-key moodiness. During the song’s bridge, a voice encourages Sunny to “strike a match”, burning down her past as an act of defiance and liberation. It comes out of the gate with its hit song, “Sunny Came Home”, in which the protagonist returns to her home “with a mission”, “a list of names”, and “a vengeance”. It is one of the records that holds its own against other classics.Ī Few Small Repairs was a “break up album”, made while Colvin was living through the tatters of a brief first marriage. It is one of those albums that goes a dozen songs deep without a weak moment. The difference, however, is that Colvin’s record now feels more like a pop masterpiece, a record that does more than stand the test of time - it shines brighter with every listen and has risen, or really soared over its competition. Now, two decades later, A Few Small Repairs still looks like a piece of mature pop - not edgy like Wu-Tang, not zeitgeisty like Alanis, not defiant or hiply smutty like Phair and her Exile in Guyville. And when Colvin and her producer co-writer Jon Leventhal headed to the stage to get their award, there was one of those Grammy moments: Ol’ Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Klan seized the stage to protest losing the “Best Rap Album”, making Colvin look mature, uncool, Grammy-ish. The Grammys, of course, are not a reliable barometer of quality. Suddenly, Colvin was not only a star but arguably the breakout star of the moment. Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill preceded Colvin’s fourth recording by just 16 months.Ī Few Small Repairs was nominated for “Best Pop Album”, but a year later the hit song, “Sunny Came Home” (released as a single in 1997) went home with both the “Record of the Year” and “Song of the Year” awards. Strong female artists were not only making great music (when were they not?) but also having bold success. Colvin would be a main stage artist in all three years of the tour, playing alongside Liz Phair, Suzanne Vega, Sheryl Crow, Sarah McLachlan, Meshell Ndegeocello, Joan Osborne, Lisa Loeb, Erykah Badu, and many others. Lilith Fair, the tour for women in the music, would gross $16 million in 1997. When pop-folksinger Shawn Colvin releasedĪ Few Small Repairs in 1996, the music world was ripe for an album of sharp, catchy songs by a female singer-songwriter.
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