Still, each track has its own spatial vibe and groove vocabulary (that ramshackle parade beat from Paradise and Lunch is resurrected for "Shrinking Man"), and each requires Cooder to employ a slightly different guise as a singer.
The Prodigal Son is stark musically - most of the instruments are played by Ry Cooder and his son, Joachim - and as in church, there's not much superfluous finery getting in the way of the message. When he tells the powerful "We see you drinking whiskey and smoking big cigars," it's not hard to imagine a cable-news montage of bankers and corporate kingpins (and cabinet members!), each representative of a different strain of greed.
Cooder renders "You Must Unload" as a slow Methodist hymn, and his deliberate, resolute pace makes it harrowing it's prayer as activism. The song's teaching, and the dismay behind it, carries forward and applies eerily to the world as it is right now. Seeking perspective on income inequality, the 71-year-old raconteur turns to a woefully underknown Appalachian songwriter named Blind Alfred Reed, who in 1927 wrote a severe song called "You Must Unload." In it, Reed admonishes "power-loving Christians in your fancy dining cars" that the only way to reach the promised land is to unload their worldly treasure.Ĭooder embellishes the lyrics a bit - did they have "jewel-encrusted high-heel shoes" in Reed's day? - but he doesn't really need to. Same deal with The Prodigal Son, Cooder's first album since 2012.
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