Allison Moorer - Wish For You (2022) Hi-Res

Wish For You is a companion EP to Allison Moorer’s recent book, I Dream He Talks to Me: A Memoir of Learning How to Listen/ It’s a collaboration with producer/guitarist Kenny Greenberg and is about, inspired by and features Moorer’s 11-year-old son, John Henry Earle, who, diagnosed with autism at 23 months, has a severe speech disability which hinders his capacity for spoken language. He has, however, inherited his mother’s gift for music, humming the melodies around which she wove the tunes and lyrics.

It begins with All We Have Is Now, constructed around the sounds on a video loop of her son stomping his foot in time to the squeaking girder on which he was standing and which both opens and runs through the track with its shuffling drums and tinkling keys. As the title suggests, the song is about living in the moment. Featuring a spoken refrain and sweeping strings, with her voice pitched higher than usual, Wish For You is another shuffling rhythm, a mother’s hopes for their child’s future (“Travel near travel far this wish for you is written on my heart”) where she describes him as a ‘celestial spirit’.

It’s followed by the uplifting anthemic Stardust & Freedom with its handclaps, strummed acoustic open chords, tumbling drum pattern, trilling melody conjuring 60s folk-pop, flowing directly into the more psychedelic cosmic vibe and hippie sentiment of One Voice which shares the same rhythm and wordless harmonies, embellished with a bluesy electric guitar solo. Finally, there’s the self-explanatory acoustic strum and rolling Americana feel of Thank You, a tender song of gratitude for being his mother that builds to a soaring finale with Greenberg letting loose on guitar before ebbing away on keyboard notes.

Together, the songs form a maternal love letter from the heart, something she describes as spirit music, a gentle, almost beatific contrast to her raw-nerved autobiographical album Blood. While the EP may resonate strongly with those who have shared similar experiences, it will also find welcome among admirers of her bewitching brand of Americana.