Jason Isbell: Maybe it’s time

Written by Rebecca Jo Loeb

Mezzo-soprano

In category: Song of the Day

Published October 2, 2019

If any of you saw the newest A Star Is Born, you may have walked out humming one of the many romantic, tear-jerker power ballads crooned throughout the evening. I however was taken with a song only briefly sung by Bradley Cooper’s character towards the beginning of the film. It walks the line between 60s folk tune and country tune (is there a difference though?!) which I felt was deeply poignant. The text is pensive but also thought provoking, the tune simple, and the guitar part deceptively complicated. Enjoy what I consider to be a lovely nod to the folk gems of the 60s/70s.

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change a man
Hell, it takes a lot to try
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Nobody knows what awaits for the dead
Nobody knows what awaits for the dead
Some folks just believe in the things they’ve heard

And the things they read
Nobody knows what awaits for the dead
I’m glad I can’t go back to where I came from
I’m glad those days are gone, gone for good
But if I could take spirits from my past and bring’ ’em here

You know I would, you know I would
Nobody speaks to God these days
Nobody speaks to God these days

I’d like to think he’s looking down and laughing at our ways
Nobody speaks to God these days
When I was a child they tried to fool me
Said the worldly man was lost and that the hell was real

Well, I’ve seen hell in Reno
And this world’s one big ol’ Catherine wheel
Spinnin’ still
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change your plans
Hella drain to change your mind
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Oh, maybe it’s time to let the old ways die

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Based in Germany, American mezzo-soprano Rebecca Jo Loeb sings regularly with Deutsche Oper Berlin and across Europe. Last season she created the role of Lumee in the premiere of Ellen Reid’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera p r i s m. In addition to her operatic repertoire, Becca Jo specializes in the music of Kurt Weill. Becca Jo returns to NYFOS in this fall in Blitzstein’s No For An Answer and Weill’s Der Silbersee.

1 Comment

  1. Avatar

    The simplicity and folk-country sound might have something to do with the song being entirely pentatonic.

    Reply

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