Our protagonist sounds like Jackson Browne. I don’t mean that Taylor Goldsmith, frontman of the rock band Dawes, owes some general debt of influence to the 70s folk-rocker’s sound, although he does. I mean that Goldsmith actually sounds like Jackson Browne. At times their singing voices are so strikingly similar that the uninitiated listener might mistake a Dawes track for an unreleased Browne B-side. This is certainly not a problem for me, and for Goldsmith the influence seems free of anxiety. He clearly loves the music of Paul Simon, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, and various other lights of the late mid-century firmament, Browne being but the most obvious.
I grew up on 70s pop rock. I love its high level of craftsmanship, its unabashed skill at delivering pleasure, its earnestness. If you excavate it long enough, you come to realize it is also a geological slice of music history containing the fossilized remnants of a curious species of self-conception. Tom Petty is a great example, actually. I’m not talking about earnestness, now. Tom is definitely earnest in his crooning, but that is not what scans as anachronistic. I’m also not saying he was sincere in a way that jaded young people aren’t capable of being anymore, nor that he was somehow innocent or unworldly. What I mean when I say that Tom Petty’s self-conception seems outdated, even quaint, is that he seems to have thought of himself not only as being very cool but also a little tough. Tom fancied himself an edgy rebel. He had enjoyed his last dance with Mary Jane (actually, quite a few dances I’m guessing), and he wanted everybody to know. But listening back to him now? I can only say that whatever kick-ass, anti-establishment radiation Tom Petty may have once been emitting, it had a short half-life.
Maybe this perception gap has always existed between generations. What presents as provocative or inflammatory to us in our youth seems staid to our children. The thing is, Taylor Goldsmith does not seem even remotely worried about whether he gets situated in a certain movement or scene or moment. He comes across as a humble craftsman from a pre-industrial age, living in a small village where he quietly fashions excellent furniture out of hickory. He is not just a singer, he is a songwriter, and the songs he writes are like Amish rocking chairs; beautiful, practical, dignified objects that a family might use for decades before passing along to the next generation. He’s not trying to give the man the finger. I have no doubt he’s danced a few waltzes with Mary Jane himself, but he didn’t do it in order to prove how cool he is.
Labeling someone’s music as dad-rock can be a casual insult, but in the case of Dawes it’s simply accurate; they sound like the unabashedly emotional 70s pop rock beloved of Baby Boomer dads — for elder millennials like myself this is often quite literally “Dad’s rock” — and, also, Goldsmith just seems like a dad. I mean, he is. He has children. But his artistic persona, the character he plays on vinyl and on stage, comes across as a contemporary update to the stereotype of the very Boomer dad whose record collection his own music evokes. Not in the sense we often mean in the broader culture, wherein the Boomer is reviled as a privileged destroyer of the environment who has ridden a once-in-a-millenium economy to unearned wealth and a comfortable retirement. Instead, Goldsmith channels a more self-aware but still slightly goofy version of the middle-aged father manning the barbecue at his niece’s sweet sixteen. I don’t have hard evidence, your honor. It’s a vibe. It’s something about his cheerfulness, his lack of twee posturing, his unapologetic poignance salted with deadpan dad jokes.
Onstage Goldsmith can seem tightly wound, but in a cheerful, bouncy way. His is the energy of a dynamo as opposed to that of a neurotic guard dog. When he busts out one of his million watt smiles and then cuts loose with a guitar solo, you get the impression he’s just happy to be up there, giving himself over to the very moment he is creating.
In 2016 Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. I agree with those who feel the committee made a mistake, but since they’ve already gone down the road of ushering lyricists into the company of novelists, may I nominate my guy TG for future consideration? His lyrics come as close to literature as the form can manage. Each song is a novel in miniature, with well-drawn characters, and efficient scenes, and exposition, and metaphor, and motifs. You listen to “When The Tequila Runs Out,” and you feel like you are actually inside a raucous party at a hotel pool. You listen to “All Your Favorite Bands,” and you find yourself thinking about your puppy dog of a third grade classmate who failed to ever launch but really loves Coors Lite. You listen to “Didn’t Fix Me” or “St. Augustine at Night,” and your soul rings with that navy blue note that somehow makes you feel a bit sad and a bit redeemed all at the same time.
Life provides endless material for the artist, and while sorrow is never far off, joy is always popping its head in, raising an eyebrow, and inviting you to enjoy the party, or the sunset, or the long drive home for as long as it lasts. Taylor Goldsmith knows this. What his fans know in return is that when the night ends and we pull back into the driveway, Goldie will be there, waiting to welcome us back with a song, a smile, and a burger he’s been keeping warm on the grill.
Thank you for putting into words what so many of us feel. Brilliant.
I second the nomination.