So Runs the World Away, Album Review

By Guest Blogger Bradley Johannsen

Who is it circles round you?
Do you circle round who it is circles round you?

I am in love with my wife. I know what it is like to relentlessly circle someone, to obsess and fawn and be joyful. My joy is increased tenfold by her simultaneous circling of me with the same fervor.

The ghost around the one it haunts
The want around the thing it wants
The way the mind just wanders off and then returns to the thought around the second thought
Love or gravity or law -
Whatever name it's got it's got me circling round you.

Josh Ritter has a new album - So Runs the World Away - and his song "Orbital" (quoted here throughout) captures this aspect of our marriage. The inlay which accompanies the CD includes next to this song's lyrics a sketch of an atom. That's how it feels, like we are electrons dancing around each other - now a particle beam, now a waveform, now a spherical nano-charge. Separate yet co-dependent. That's electricity, folks. That's light and energy and e=mc^2. That's a good life.

The hawk around the field mouse
The love around a lover's mouth
I find my mind is settling down in circuits around you.
The angels round their crowded pins
The amber-waved electrons spin
In planetary transits round the ones they're bound to.

Thank God we have a Nucleus around which to spin, a kind and mysterious creator who attracts us and gives us meaning and brings us close to bask in his infinite-ness without swallowing up our individuality. If there is anything more difficult to comprehend than spinning electrons and Einstein's theory of relativity it would be God's giving grace and life to these dry bones. Difficult to comprehend, yes, but the fact of it remains.

Ritter is a romantic, poet, and kick-ass folk-pop songwriter. Sarah and I are music junkies, and he has been at or near the top of our "favorites list" for three years now. So Runs the World Away does not disappoint. It is a strong album, with recurring themes of a ship at sea and searching for a home. Ritter recently married fellow singer Dawn Landes, and this album catches something of a newlywed summer - walking through lush gardens as they burst forth with berries, thunderstorms gathering too quick to reach cover. It is rejuvenating to relive those times through the songs of such a gifted artist, and to be thankful that I have a home. I need a home.

The wheel, time
The wheel, fate
The light that bends itself through space
The light that with it carries time
Which also bends in the same line
Relative to a point of view
So when I catch a glimpse of you
Every time you come around
The room lights up
And time slows too.

"Orbital" (new song): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTGzu5OKf0E
"Rattling Locks" (new song): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MTQNmFj8Yw
"Lark" (new song): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNmqpjkeM_0
"The Temptation of Adam" (old song): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvCeCVmJAUA&feature=related
"Mind's Eye" (old song): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOx_DrxHVHI

On Monday morning, April 26th, NPR will be streaming the entire album on its website. Go to www.npr.org/music to hear!