Mary McBride - The Way Home (2010)

As long as human beings try to express their emotions in language, magic still exists in the world. Mary McBride conjures that magic in the deep, deep emotional waters of her songwriting. She has hit on striking images and cavernous depths in the past, but The Way Home is her masterpiece. McBride comes from a place where the songwriter's soul is torn open, revealing the spirit behind the heart. It's the same place Townes Van Zandt inhabited, the soul space that nourished Laura Nyro and Joni Mitchell. Not that her writing specifically resembles the form of theirs, it's just that McBride's songs come from a place where words mean far more than marks on a page.

There are precious few song cycles about the minefield of love as moving as The Way Home. It's hard not to be riven by McBride's work, but this time she's pulled the pillars of love's temple down around her. And emerged smiling.