Trish Murphy - Crooked Mile (1997)

Crooked Mile is a triumph of happy-go-lucky uncertainty, pinballing between hubris and self-doubt, glossy pop hooks and stern folk mores. Like most worthwhile debuts, it's more a model of what this Austin, TX, singer/songwriter has become than a map of where she might be headed. Missed opportunities, and the heartache that often results, appear in various forms on Crooked Mile. There's the exhausted, slightly deranged breadwinner of "Boiling Water" storming home after his shift at the refinery, cocked and ready for a fight. Seen through a young girl's eyes, the vision of "daddy comin' 'cross the pasture, smokestack stuck in his back" is a portrait of blue-collar rage so rich with detail you can almost taste the toxic grit in the air. Throughout Crooked Mile, Trish Murphy invests faith in little details, depending on the power of suggestion to carry her lyrics. "Blue Tattoo" chooses as its subject an etched-in-skin reminder of an affair "over before it's begun." On "Relentless," the depressing reality of a failing relationship is embraced so tightly "your fist turns white and your soul may be blown wide open"; the tune's sad resignation is embodied in the echoed chime of a lightly picked 12-string Rickenbacker. Crooked Mile was produced with unassuming precision by Dave McNair, whose credits include Belinda Carlisle and the Silos. His effortless pop sheen serves to flesh out Murphy's sound rather than sterilize it. Her catchy, no-frills compositions aren't the sort that lose their power in more commercial translation, anyhow.