Land of the Bottom Line - John Gorka
“This is an artist who takes in the trivialities of an average life and spits out music just as quickly. An artist for whom songwriting is just as natural and vulnerable a process as speaking to someone you love.”
From “4 Albums to Make You Cry”
Some artists tug at our heartstrings because they lay bare their personal sorrow for the world to grieve alongside them. Some write tragic stories that bring listeners on emotional roller coasters with their dramatic poeticism. But then, once every generation of empathetic wordsmiths, someone like John Gorka emerges from the fold. Dubbed “the preeminent male singer-songwriter of the New Folk Movement” by Rolling Stone magazine, John Gorka is known for his rich baritone and his perceptive, stream-of-consciousness-style songwriting. His words cut deep not because of their emotional intensity, but because of their unmistakable familiarity. This is an artist who takes in the trivialities of an average life and spits out music just as quickly. An artist for whom songwriting is just as natural and vulnerable a process as speaking to someone you love. Since his debut album I Know was released in 1987, Gorka has steadily released fourteen studio albums over the course of his career, each one a reflection of the circumstances of Gorka’s own life at the time it was released. But with his second album, Land of the Bottom Line, he captures the essence of heartbreak, grief, and disappointment in a way unlike any of his other projects. Not every song is overwhelmingly sorrowful, but that’s just the point. Gorka recognizes that there is meaning in suffering, and each of life’s tough situations brings with it an emotional maturation and a bit of wisdom. And with instrumental arrangements that rarely include more than an acoustic guitar and sparse vocal harmonies, John Gorka allows for both to be heard loud and clear.
“Gorka recognizes that there is meaning in suffering, and each of life’s tough situations brings with it an emotional maturation and a bit of wisdom.”
Land of the Bottom Line is less an emotional breakdown album and more of an emotional meditation. That being said, Gorka definitely touts his familiarity with heartbreak on this particular record. He explores every avenue of the heartbreak he has experienced, bringing to light feelings that are familiar to all of us in his own simple-yet-poignant words. The second song on the album, “Armed with a Broken Heart,” is a lyrical account of the first stages of heartbreak – denial and anger. “This sudden loneliness has made me dangerous, please don’t watch me while I fall apart – ‘cause I’m sad and I’m angry and armed with a broken heart,” Gorka sings. This song is tortured and self-flagellating, and with lyrics such as these, Gorka does not allow words to get in the way of truth. Later in the album, songs such as “The One That Got Away” and “Full of Life” seem further down the timeline of Gorka’s personal heartbreak experience. No longer angry, but wistful and sentimental, the former illustrates the tenderest, innermost thoughts had in the aftermath of heartbreak, while the latter is a self-deprecating, sarcastic, and darkly humorous reflection on Gorka’s failings in his own past relationship. Devastating one-liners such as “Life is full of disappointment, yes, and I am full of life” and “Money and love are much the same, the less you have, the more you’re to blame” are testaments to Gorka’s ability to fully convey complex, esoteric emotions in fifteen words or less. However, the crown jewel of lovesick longing on this album is no doubt “I Saw a Stranger with Your Hair.” The lyrics on this track are written in the form of an open letter, Gorka musing to his former lover about seeing her features in random passers-by. This song is intimate, vulnerable, and conjures the all-too-familiar image of a former partner as an idealized version of themselves; as an angel.
“Land of the Bottom Line is less an emotional breakdown album and more of an emotional meditation.”
Another attribute of Gorka’s songwriting that makes this album a strangely personal experience is his ability to find beauty in the mundane. In the lyrics of songs such as “Stranger In My Driver’s Seat” and “Dream Street,” Gorka tackles subjects that are no more profound than being a victim of car theft or the careers of his favorite professional boxers. However, with his emotive guitar playing and his pithy intellectual observations, he can turn a slice of pedestrian life into an intriguing narrative. Upon hearing the pertinence and sentimentality with which Gorka describes his subjects, you would think that he had lived a thousand lives, held a thousand occupations, and met a thousand people. With these songs, Gorka proves himself both a practiced and multifaceted storyteller, singing captivating ballads about everything from a hapless criminal whose fate has been sealed since birth to a group of pigs throwing a prom dance. “The Sentinel,” a requiem for an eccentric but beloved member of a community in which Gorka once worked, is a standout among these songs for its charming and heartwarming account of the song’s subject.
“Upon hearing the pertinence and sentimentality with which Gorka describes his subjects, you would think that he had lived a thousand lives, held a thousand occupations, and met a thousand people.”
Every song on this album is beautiful and evocative in its own way, but if there was one song for which I would trade away all the others, it’s “Love Is Our Cross to Bear.” Gorka recorded the song twice before – once on his 1987 album, I Know, and once on a collection of full-band arrangements that were scrapped in 1985 and later released in 2016 as the album Before Beginning. The song’s ability to gracefully shift moods between the sweet, youthfully pining version on I Know and the substantially more produced lovesick anthem on Before Beginning is part of what makes it such a perfect song. But its trifecta of emotional range would not be complete without the version that appears on Land of the Bottom Line. Gorka’s arrangement of this version is emblematic of the album in that he puts as little between himself and the listener as possible. This version is slow, aching, even melancholic, but it rings with more vulnerability than any previous version. Clocking in at 4 minutes and 57 seconds, Gorka takes his time on this song, allowing every word to have full, uninhibited impact. He hypnotizes the listener with his forlorn vocals and painfully candid words about watching a former lover from a distance. And yet, amidst his dejection, Gorka still finds room to make his gratitude known – “And so it is until we meet again, and I throw my arms around you, you can count the gray hairs in my head, I’ll still be thankful that I found you.” Of all the songs on this album, this one feels the most lucid, as though Gorka is no longer inhibited by narratives or extended metaphor and is able to speak with unequivocal genuineness. “Love Is Our Cross to Bear” is the perfect love song and the perfect heartbreak song because it is nuanced enough for its mood to be subject to the listener’s interpretation, but its lyrics strike a personal chord in listeners’ memories no matter what that interpretation is.
“...he puts as little between himself and the listener as possible.”
Land of the Bottom Line is an album about love, sorrow, hope, and despair. It is sung from many different perspectives and is, at times, cloaked in metaphor, but Gorka’s emotional wisdom and modest charm never fail to shine through. On this album, Gorka has you mourn the loss of people you’ve never met and fall in love with people you’ve never known, all while keeping your interest with his expressive instrumental arrangements. No matter what Gorka writes about, whether it’s joyful or sorrowful, humorous or serious, his music is always about the truth. Not many other artists can make this claim, but John Gorka has always been one to stand on his own pedestal, and it shows on this album. In his own words, “That’s how legends are made.”
For Fans Of: John Prine, James Taylor, The Avett Brothers
Listen to: “Love Is Our Cross to Bear”, “I Saw a Stranger with Your Hair”, “The Sentinel”
