If you are going to write a love letter to Gen X, as Lurleen Ladd’s forthcoming album, Reclamation, is, then it would seem inconceivable that you wouldn’t include John Cougar Mellencamp in the roll call of music to celebrate from that era. Of course, the art of covering someone else’s songs is to put your own spin on things, and here ‘Pink Houses’ is moved from his trademark roots-rock groove into a more gospel-infused ballad.
It’s the perfect format for the song whose theme is a critical look at the dark, broken underbelly of the American Dream. The new spaciousness makes the song feel even more poignant; the celebratory nature of the gospel array is somehow as ironic as it is fantastic. This is a song where the message is delivered subliminally and between the lines.
And as the lyrics sketch out vignettes and small snapshots of everyday life in the margins, as the music ebbs and flows in waves between ambient sonics and vocal highs, ‘Pink Houses’ acts as a wake-up call for the so-called American Dream. And that is a brave move on Ladd’s part in these times of growing division and entrenched ideas of nationhood.
But perhaps what it reminds us is that a good song is one that is robust enough to be reimagined and reinterpreted, reshaped to fit new stylistic realms, and to still deliver its powerful message to a new audience through such sonic retooling. And ‘Pink Houses’ is a great song… just as Mellencamp was an accomplished writer and so too is Lurleen Ladd a fantastic reinterpreter, arranger, and artist in her own right.
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