Show The Way – Tobin Mueller (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

There has always been a lot to unpack when writing about Tobin‘s music. And that is always a good thing to be faced with as a writer; after all, if all you are going to do is “describe the music”, you might as well get a job in local journalism, and no matter how tough times get, I’m not going back there, I can tell you. And the reason that Tobin and his music are such fun to write about is that there are so many avenues of exploration – his song-writing, his ability to hop, invent or ignore genres, the poetic scope and depth of the lyricism, the collaborations and co-writes, the reimagining of standards, the creation of future standards too and so much more.

Here, the byline is something like, “A Christian folk song reimagined as an adult contemporary love ballad in the hands of a Broadway composer who is partial to a bit of jazz!” And that makes a nice change from writing about the usual pack of deluded pop-punk kids who still think the early nineties were a high water mark in contemporary music. I was there… they weren’t.

Written by David Wilcox, a man that Tobin met 35 years ago when he was running home concerts, as a straightforward religious piece, Show The Way has, in the hands of Mueller, become something broader and more accessible. With some slight lyrical alterations, the meaning becomes more philosophical, less spiritual, and more relatable but no less powerful. It also contains wonderful references to playwriting and that, perhaps, all men and women, merely players, to paraphrase Old Bill, and throws around ideas of darkness and destiny, of heroes arriving too late to save the day, and that, after all, it is love that writes the parts that we play out on this life-stage. Subtle changes move the emphasis away from an intangible higher power and instead set it in mere mortals’ hearts and souls.

And musically, it is Tobin Mueller stripped bare. Although he is known, in part, as the creator of highly orchestrated pieces, of deft and ornate songs, it is not something he hides behind and Show The Way is just a man and a piano, a few sonic embellishments and little else. There is a wonderfully Waitsian vibe to the way Tobin performs it too. I’m not saying that he sounds like Tom, how could you, but I am saying that in this form if you found the song tucked away towards the end of Heartattack and Vine, the album that saw him move slightly away from jazz and into more mainstream fringes, it would seem right at home.

Songs like this show just one more side to the multi-faceted Mueller. Here, it is an ability to take a song that someone has written from the heart and find a way to make it beat seamlessly with his own, and do so whilst taking nothing away from the beauty of the original sentiment.

A truly gorgeous song with a wonderfully rich and resonant set of lyrics and a finessed and perfectly understated delivery. It’s what he does!