Rhett Miller – Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller opens his latest self-titled solo album with one called “Nobody Says I Love You Anymore”. But he’s not talking about himself. No, Miller’s songs are filled with various and unique ‘I love you’ statements. Instead, he’s likely speaking to the lack of reciprocal affirmations of love. Miller is the lovelorn, heartsick sort, which is made fully clear with his sincere pop-rock songs.

Many may already know of Miller from his association with the alt.country band, Old 97’s, even though that group his hardly your atypical country-rock outfit; they just have a little bit of Texan in them. But there’s always a little Texan, even in the man’s solo work as “I Need to Know Where I Stand” at least has a touch of California, Eagles-ish country-rock going for it, while “Another Girlfriend”, with its Western lope, also plays the country card.

One significant point Miller drives home again and again is that there is no love, though it be good or bad, without consequences. At one juncture during “If it’s Not Love” he announces: “If you’re not the one/You’re gonna be the one I miss.” In other words, once an attachment is created, it can never be permanently severed. “Now I tried to tell you that I was no good from the start,” Miller admits in the same song, before adding: “But when you opened up your front door/I handed you my heart.” We can’t help ourselves: we’re simply doomed to hurt ourselves and others, whenever human hearts are in play.

With “Happy Birthday Don’t Die”, Miller proves once again that rockers don’t know the first thing about creating proper birthday greetings. First came The Smiths’ “Unhappy Birthday”, now this. But Miller’s song is more than mere cake cutting soundtrack fare. “The planet is covered in steel,” he says, “the moon goes on wasting its light,” pointing out the lyric’s ulterior cosmic proportions. In a rocker that growls like Elvis Costello, back when he was much angrier, this is a 4th of July celebration from hell, instead.

In direct contrast to “Happy Birthday Don’t Die”, “Haphazardly” finds Miller sounding as fragile as the planet he describes in the former. It’s a surrendered musical reaction to love on the rocks. “This is what the house feels like without you in it.” Then, more intimately, “This is what the bed feels like without you in it.”

Speaking of Elvis Costello again, drummer John Dufiho’s rifling drum announcement sounds a lot like the beginning to “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love, & Understanding”, while the guitar line is beautifully close to Mike Campbell’s sustained lines during “The Waiting”. Watching love go up in flames during “Happy Birthday Don’t Die” is both familiar and tragic: This is the other side of leaving/ From what I’ve seen so many times/ You make a great big deal out of nothing/ And then you cut me down to size.” Miller’s seen this scene before, yet he cannot keep the house of cards from falling, even with all of his amassed experience.

Perhaps one reason why nobody says I love you anymore is because humans are deathly afraid of the responsibilities that go along with such a statement. It’s much easier to play girlfriend/boyfriend and/or play house. But when we played house as kids, no alimony was paid out and material possessions were never divided semi-evenly. But as Miller reminds us here so convincingly, real life love has serious consequences.

Tagged as: Los Angeles, Rock

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