A Meaningful Connection, by Andrew Bryant

A Meaningful Connection

by Andrew Bryant

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jlknoir Another solid album from the most talented artist I know. There is a wider variety of vocal work on this album and I love it. "Fight" is an amazing song, and the low vocal work in it would be perfect for some Johnny Cash covers! As always, I look forward to hearing more. Thank you for sharing your music with us! Favorite track: Fight.

Yimmy Kil Beautiful, very introspective, heart on a sleeve lyrics that are so real and hard hitting. Being able to bring these emotions and thoughts out in song is truly the art of songwriting. AB has truly come into his own with this latest album. Write songs with meaning and purpose and people will listen. So very well done 👏 Favorite track: Lying On The Road.

Jamie Thank you for putting this out into the world, enjoying immensely on a quiet Friday night.

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1.	Private Window 04:11	lyrics
Folk singers on Twitter You know they’ve got all the answers They’re all at the tips of your fingers In that pale blue light You can lay down in your bed Hang your hat on every line that you’ve read While your lover is dreaming You are waking to that blue bird song You can open your own private window You can look upon the power and light You can eat from the tree of the god That keeps you up at night In the morning you can check your mail And some dude will ask you how’s it been? He really likes your work Is there any chance he’ll see you again? You can exit your private screen Open a window and hear Let It Breathe That was a long time ago But man, it was a hell of a song You can open your own private window You can look upon the power and light You can eat from the tree of the god That keeps you up at night You can read the words of the prophets You can follow the light in the darkness You can eat from the tree of the god That keeps you up at night You can eat from the tree of the gods And it’ll taste just fine In another 140 years There’ll be another 140 people Writing another 140 lines about what it all means To Let It Bleed
2.	Spiritual Genocide 03:46	lyrics
Let’s drop our axes and let’s go for a ride Take Houston Levee deep into the east side Open the T-tops, turn the music up high I’ll take the wheel when you feel like it’s too far to drive We can run but we know we can never hide From the truth and the lies of our spiritual genocide I hear you crying at the foot of the bed I ask what’s wrong and you just shake your head Did you not hear a word that my father said? He prophesied that the world would be better off dead He said we can run but we know we can never hide He said we can lie but the truth always comes to the light Yeah I know we can run but I know we can never hide From the truth and the lies of our spiritual genocide My sister called and said you’re not well You’re in the ICU, your kidneys have failed I take a breathe and let out a sigh Grab my keys to the car and go for a drive I can run but I know I can never hide From the truth and the lies of our spiritual genocide
3.	Fight 03:51	lyrics
I don’t want to fight Anymore I don’t want to fight Anymore No I don’t want to fight Anymore Anymore I don’t want to scream in your ear, Want to cause another tear, Run my hands through my hair, Run my hands through my beard Take a breath, hold it in Feel the life that I live Let it out when it’s time Let it out with my mind I don’t want to fight Anymore No I don’t want to fight Anymore I don’t want to start a war I don’t want a war No I don’t want to start a war I don’t want a war Cause I don’t want to fight Anymore I want to be like Christ But I don’t want to die I want to be like Christ But I don’t want to die Cause I don’t want to fight Anymore
4.	Lying On The Road 03:51	lyrics
Staring at the longest line I came back to myself Looking through the windshield Of our busted out old van There is no turning back There is no wasting time When you don’t come from anywhere And you leave nothing behind For many years I kept this thought Like a truth in the back of my mind Drinking myself sane Like it is sane to kill your time Crossing the street in Arizona I was almost hit by a car Just trying to buy some cigarettes Before we showed up to the bar I was lying on the road I was lying at all our shows I was lying Sitting back in my office now I’m staring at that same line Stretching down the longest road I keep checking the time I hear a noise outside the door So I pull the curtains wide It’s just a tiny terrapin I watch him slowly walk on by I was lying on the road I was lying at all our shows I was lying
5.	Birmingham 03:59	lyrics
I was crying for you, in my car I’m driving, On my way to Birmingham. I’m still trying to make something. I’m still trying to make something. I’m still trying to make something out of my life. I drive on, searching for the road back home. I drive all night long, trying not to look at my phone. I park at the club and sit there. Staring at the door, I’m thinking, There has to be some story I haven’t told yet. I sing all my songs and feel them, Staring at the back of my eyelids, And we call this a meaningful connection. I drive on, searching for the road back home. All the merch is gone but I still feel so alone. I don’t want to sing this song. I know it won’t keep the lights on. It takes too much to be alone. I just can’t do this on my own. I’m looking for your name in my phone. I’m looking at my phone. I want to see your face in my palm. I can do this all night long.
6.	Reality Winner 03:35 video	lyrics
What is this feeling that I have Like I’m caught between the here and the now? Just some shitty midlife crisis That would bore even the steadiest crowd? With everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve done, I don’t play games and I don’t care who won. I just want to drink my tea on my porch As I stare at the shapes in the clouds. When my time comes, how will I go? When my time comes, how will I know? If the past is the past who’s the winner In this fucking reality show? So please ya’ll, don’t @ me, I’m trying out this vibe. I don’t have to listen to your truth or your lies. I’m turning off my phone now And walking to the park where I go some days to hide. And I’m looking at the birds now, flying in and out, Taking what they need to make that long trip south. I guess it’s in the blood of the living To work around that easy way out. When my time comes, will I say it was enough? When my time comes, will I feel like giving up? Just let the past have its place And move on to whatever is to come? When my time comes, how will I go? When my time comes, tell me how will I know? If the past is the past who’s the winner In this fucking reality show? What is this feeling that I have Like I’m caught between the here and the now? Just some shitty midlife crisis That would bore even the steadiest crowd?
7.	Take The Time 03:25	lyrics
When you go out walking by yourself There’s always time for something else. There’s always time to remember. When you start back listening, to those old cassettes, To the saddest songs you forgot you’d made yourself, There’s always time to remember. When you wake up dreaming of another life, One that’s healthy and clean and full and bright, There’s always time to remember. There’s always time to remember But never time to take it back. So take the time.
8.	How It Feels 04:26	lyrics
Daddy, take me hunting. I want to be a man. I want to shoot the bullet right through the head. Momma, sing me a song. And I will sing along. I want to run the blade right down to the bone. ‘Cause I want to know how it feels. Sister, let’s go for a ride. I don’t want to go to church tonight. I just want to follow the moon out into the night. Let’s take our brother from his seat. We can walk and find the perfect tree. And we can climb it together and you’ll see what I mean. 'Cause I want you to know how it feels.
9.	Drink The Pain Away 03:58	lyrics
I’m sitting on the floor Waiting for someone to tell me to go Trying to keep my mind off the things I know I can’t control But it’s a hell of a thing Staring at everything you’ve ever owned Sealed up in boxes in the hallway with no light and nowhere to go I want to drink my pain away For the first time in two months today I want to drink my pain away If I can’t find another song to sing I have to call the kids And tell them that everything’s gonna be ok And that’s the part of the role that I find is the hardest to play Saying everything is fine When everything feels fucked up is just a lie I guess I never really learned how to let go of the truth for a lie I want to drink my pain away For the first time in two months today I want to drink my pain away If I can’t find another song to sing I took a walk and stood outside Watched the birds and cars pass by Wiped the sweat off of my eyes Took a deep breath and let out a sigh I don’t want to drink my pain away I just want to let today be today I don’t want to drink my pain away I’ve just gotta find another song to sing
10.	Truth Ain't Hard To Find 04:22	lyrics
I drop my bottle in the trash, swear it’s my last drink I take my heart out of my chest, wash it down the sink It’s true I’ve done this all before, I’m hoping this time sticks Cause I want to die like I want a job, I just ain’t got time for it I can’t lie I’m running out of time Every day that’s passed is a day my body dies No, I can’t lie The truth ain’t hard to find It’s a chorus I keep singing in my mind Now every night I have this dream like the wind blowing on my neck I ask if you remember me and you say you never knew my name I tell you I’m the man downstairs that never really likes to go out You hear me when I make my love and when I play my music loud You can’t lie We’re running out of time Every day that’s passed is a day our bodies die No, you can’t lie The truth ain’t hard to find It’s a chorus we keep singing in our minds I hear it seldom ever works that things fall into place But I can’t say I understand how some things got this way I hear it takes a stronger soul to build a stronger mind Like how a verse is just a verse until you sing it twice I can’t lie I’m running out of time Every day that’s passed is a day my body dies No I can’t lie The truth ain’t hard to find It’s a chorus I keep singing in my mind
11.	Liminal 02:18	lyrics
(no words live in this space)

about

Pete Hamill starts his liner notes for Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks this way: “In the end, the plague touched us all.” I’ll start there, too. Goddamn, we’re all beat up. A wreck of a nation. A wreck of a world. A wreck that has been reassembled with screws missing and busted corners and a bad tilt. What remains—what carried me and carries me—is good art. Andrew Bryant’s voice is one I’m consistently thankful for, and I’m more thankful for it than ever in this time of feeling scraped out and ruined. On this new album, A Meaningful Connection, he’s constantly tangling with his wants and needs and fears. He Whitman-wanders through his own wreckage. He’s “looking at the quarrel of the self,” as Hamill said of Dylan. What better way to make sense of things?

“I want to be like Christ, but I don’t want to die,” Bryant sings on “Fight,” the album’s third track. What comes to mind is Nikos Kazantzakis’s very human Jesus from The Last Temptation of Christ, the “deep inscrutable mystery” of “nostalgia for God” that opens both “large wounds and large flowing springs.” A Meaningful Connection is not a religious record, but it traffics in the same sort of spiritual anguish. Bryant is always yearning, searching, battling. Loss of faith doesn’t erase the struggle of duality, the conflict of being.

If the album’s got a thesis, it’s this from “Drink the Pain Away”: “Saying everything is fine when everything feels fucked up is just a lie / I guess I never really learned how to let go of the truth for a lie.” Bryant’s more obsessed than ever with the truth and time. He interrogates his past. What’s real? What’s artifice? What’s home? What’s a meaningful connection mean? How do we kill the loneliness? What happens when something we thought was the truth turns out to be a lie? Standout track “Birmingham” spins these questions into a melancholy chronicle of such seeking. Another standout, “Reality Winner,” finds Bryant saying, “So please ya’ll, don’t @ me, / I’m trying out this vibe. / I don’t have to listen to your truth or your lies.” On “Truth Ain’t Hard to Find,” Bryant tells us that “[the] truth ain’t hard to find / It’s a chorus I keep singing in my mind,” and it feels triumphant as hell.

The plague came. Other plagues were already here. Yet other plagues have been here forever and will never leave. We struggle on. We look for another song to sing. We drink and we stop drinking. We want and we stop wanting. We find peace in big waves and lose it in fires that tear through our houses and our hearts. “I hear it takes a stronger soul to build a stronger mind,” Bryant says. “Like how a verse is just a verse until you sing it twice.” Here are some songs built to carry you. Here are some songs that play like watching a movie at a drive-in while a hard rain falls. Here is a memory made of gravel. Here is a plan written in ink that bleeds. As Barry Hannah wrote, “Ladies and gentleman, it’s all power and light.”
-William Boyle, 2021

credits

released July 9, 2021

All songs written, recorded, produced, performed and mixed by Andrew Bryant at Sentimental Noises Studios, Oxford, MS (Copyright 2021, BMI).

Andrew Bryant performed all vocals and instruments except pedal steel on "Birmingham" and "Take The Time" (performed by Kell Kellum) and organ on "Spiritual Genocide" (performed by Spencer Thomas).

Mastered by Clay Jones at Pete’s Room in Taylor, MS.
Cover and press photography by Paul Gandy.
Insert photography by Andrew Bryant.
Layout and design by Maxwell Stern.

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Some rights reserved. Please refer to individual track pages for license info.

about

Andrew Bryant Mississippi

Andrew Bryant is a singer/songwriter and founding member of Water Liars. He lives and works in Oxford, MS.

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