ANAIS MITCHELL
Young Man In America
Wilderland

anaismitchell.com
 

To find an artist who has the vision and ambition of Anais Mitchell, one would have to look beyond the current crop of singer-songwriters, to poets like Walt Whitman, novelists like John Dos Passos, or social critics like Howard Zinn. Rather than writing three-minute confessional vignettes, she aspires to create musical versions of the Great American Novel, with vivid characters and everyman narratives that capture our country’s zeitgeist. Her 2010 folk opera Hadestown transplanted the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus to Depression-era America to tell a story of love triumphing over adversity. This album, Young Man in America, follows its characters through the “wilderland” of today’s diminished America, in which the young seek leadership and guidance, face challenges and ultimately find self-reliance. The album takes its characters from birth, when “my mother gave a mighty shout, opened her legs and let me out,” through their “wandrin’ in the wilderland” of sacrifice, tragedy, labor, lost self-worth and the spectre of death.

As in Hadestown, these characters tell their stories in the first person, as if in a stage musical. In one memorable song, “Tailor,” a woman shapes her life to fit her man’s praise, and when he leaves her, is left not knowing “if I’m a diamond or a dime-a-dozen.” She joins the other characters here in calling out, “Who am I?”

The arrangements are also theatrical, with producer Todd Sickafoose building in woodwinds, crashing drums, and atmospheric support from, among others, Chris Thile on mandolin and Jenny Scheinman on fiddle.

— Scott Sheldon