Jess Williamson
“Hum of the City”
New West Records (available via Bandcamp)
Jess Williamson’s “Hum of the City” is a stand-out track on her latest album, A Mile South of Heaven, out now on New West Records.
The drone of fiddle and banjo (plus some organ from producer Shooter Jennings) make the whole song sound like it’s covered in dust and dirt. Her voice shines through like a bonfire, growing and shrinking and floating over sparse instrumentation.
It never explodes into the big ballad you’re thinking it might be, but that’s yet another opportunity for Williamson to haunt this track with her yearning sung out from a place in between the city and the backcountry.
“There’s something about the women there
They all look the same
I been running out of reasons to stay”
She’s not quite comfortable in either one, aching for the other one and sometimes loving the state of being in between.
“Deep in the woods, I feel the hum of the city
It’s my birthday, honey, I wanna look pretty
Dance me ’round that beer-stained floor”
This is the type of song that absolutely hits when you’re on your third beer and it comes on the jukebox at your local dive bar. It’s sonically aligned with something you might hear on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, or Eddie Vedder’s solo work for the movie Into the Wild, particularly his song “Hard Sun.”
Considering two back-to-back film soundtrack references, it’s clear “Hum of the City” is a cinematic Americana song.
Like a lot of Williamson’s work, however, there’s something a bit anticlimactic here. It’s a plot that doesn’t seem to go anywhere. It’s a movie you enjoyed watching but certainly wouldn’t rank in your favorites on Letterboxd.
It’s a song that’s missing a little something, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.
Still, I’d listen again.
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