Recall, if you will, Shipley’s First Hypothesis.
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[6.43]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: I haven’t been able to go to the cinema for a couple of months but I’m pretty sure that “Half Broke Horses” just saved me £13 by recasting The Place Beyond the Pines as a sin-of-the-mother epic about strained Southern lives and the inevitability of wayward men. There’s first love, childhood trauma and the cyclical nature of daughters becoming mothers, told by a narrator equal parts evasive (“I sorta still remember”) and honest (“we made love wild and crazy”), soundtracked by a sob-worthy widescreen drawl. Derek Cianfrance has two hours to work with on screen, but Dreyer had me feeling choked up twice in the space of four minutes. Apples and oranges, yes, but the storytelling of “Half Broke Horses” is as good as most movies, better than many songs.
[9]
David Lee: Exquisite, devastating, and also fairly anonymous.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: One of those country singles where formulaic craft is dignity, anonymity is genteel — but this is too crafted. I’m supposed to get misty, but it’s hard to while checking off the songwriting list: the voice processed to twang, the torrid affairs begun and done in three lines, the scattering of conspicuously specific details. Like the Marlboro Reds, the plastic ponies — which in 2013 would probably be, like, Twilight Sparkles. Maybe it’s not crafted enough.
[5]
Anthony Easton: It’s the introductory Marlboro Reds reference that does it for me. That one line, and I will believe anything she sells me, even if the phrase “half broke horses” is a pretty little bit of meaningless poetry.
[7]
Alfred Soto: The details — Marlboro Reds, “Mama” — are identikit at this point, so it takes a voice with more reach and empathy than Jaida Dreyer’s got to redeem them.
[5]
Brad Shoup: So much vibrato, I thought Spotify had coughed up a 96kbps file. Dreyer’s recoding of agency as genetics is tragic, and it seems she gets that. Damp snare snaps and male backing vocals: trips west were sponsored with less.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: The song and the way she sings reminds me of Rebecca Lynn Howard, and how she never really quite happened, which is a wonderful fond memory. The details seem pasted in at the last moment, though, signifiers for their own sake. Dreyer’s singing voice is really nice, and her writing knows the power in country’s conventions, but the narrative doesn’t go much beyond generic. It’s not all bad though; if the arrangement is weepy twang and then a few tantalising seconds of power balladry done for their own sakes, then they’re done well enough to suggest the album’s worth keeping a lazy eye on.
[6]