…who had a boyfriend, who looked like a girlfriend that I had in February of last year…
[Video]
[5.45]
Stephen Eisermann: It’s so easy to turn a blind eye to the people on the side of the road who ask for money, but this song does a good job of humanizing these people. It reads poorly, but I know so many people who view those less fortunate as others and less human. But they have a story, as Tenille Townes sings, and it is a disservice to view them so negatively. Maybe giving them a story doesn’t change the way other people treat them, but the rough country tune and lived-in vocal do well to remind us that everyone is someone, even if they’re standing behind a sign that is asking for money.
[7]
Ramzi Awn: Tenille Townes echos and reverbs through her cascading dreams with a natural rhythm and undeniable fight. Down to the gym, “Somebody’s Daughter” is the kind of song that gives you faith in songwriting. Townes hangs on tight in the hook, and comes through — shines, really.
[9]
Thomas Inskeep: Shiny, au courant country production (the drums are mixed LOUD) supporting one of the best lyrics I’ve heard in the past year, wondering about the background of a homeless woman who Townes sees panhandling. Townes has a great voice too, unique as hell. This is what I wish (much) more contemporary country sounded like.
[9]
Alfred Soto: I expected “Another Day in Paradise” — privileged white person noting homelessness. Tenille Townes’s big voice is subtle enough, however, to project curiosity about the woman without requiring us to congratulate her for noticing. The production, though, does call attention to itself, as if the women were Noriega and Townes and co. were the Marines blasting Guns ‘N Roses.
[6]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: Hold on, you’re telling me that homeless people have names and personal histories? And you’re starting to empathize with them because they may have run lemonade stands once or been someone’s first kiss? “Somebody’s Daughter” is music for people who find some sense of moral satisfaction in simply pondering the plight of the less fortunate. “Somebody’s Daughter” is music for cowards.
[0]
Katherine St Asaph: Often with glurge songs, it’s the little details that are most revealing. Here, it’s the names: “She could be a Sarah, she could be an Emily, an Olivia, maybe Cassidy.” Individually these names are too extremely popular to code as much (though, if I’m nitpicking, they were extremely popular in different decades, and surely the speaker’d notice whether the woman’s 35 or 18). But together, they suggest formerly middle-class, likely white bounds on the person to whom Townes, Luke Laird and Barry Dean are extending their empathy. The names betray the respectability politics: the speaker’s empathy comes after picturing this woman with an idyllic childhood of besties and lemonade stands and prom dates just like we (“we”?) had, as if maybe if that weren’t so automatic to imagine, they wouldn’t write a song about her. Shame about the track, too, remarkably robust guitars stuck reluctantly in church.
[3]
Iris Xie: Definitely a song to play at a fundraising banquet, right before tapping the mic and asking for more funds to donate and support social welfare causes. Or maybe it’d be part of a time capsule to let aliens know that our society has failed in providing everyone homes and our current political and economic system utterly fails at supporting everyone except for the corrupt rich. But no, we sit here, listening privately to a plaintive song that helps remind people to be humane and not see houseless people as a nuisance, and to break out of the compartmentalization that is required to survive in a world like ours right now. The lines “Well, no one’s gonna ask what she wants to be / Or why we’re both stuck here at the mercy of geography / And whether it shines or rains” is a deft and evocative take on the fates wrought upon the most marginalized, and due to life requiring intense compartmentalization to get by, the awkwardness and sadness that comes with bumping into a houseless person on the street and cursing systemic inequity. The swell in the final chorus, and how it fades out for the outro, helps cement the force of Townes’s point — we’re all connected with histories, and let’s not forget about that, even with the callous, careless ways one could treat each other in daily life.
[7]
Andy Hutchins: “And can she even tell that I don’t know what to say?” is maybe the most patronizing thing said during the run of “Somebody’s Daughter.” Clearly, Tenille Townes does know what she wants to say about homelessness (or prostitution, or drug addiction, or whatever vague plight has befallen the person whose misfortune Townes blames on the “mercy of geography”), but she’s putting it in a song about a convenient subject and not words spoken to that person. No, woke country from the vein tapped (and in the lane cleared) by Ms. Musgraves need not be sociologically rigorous — but if it’s going to sound like friggin’ “Barefoot Blue Jean Night,” it might try compensating with compassion beyond “a coupla dollars” and wondering out loud whether those down on their luck have feelings.
[3]
Julian Axelrod: The morality politics are murky, but the details and that voice shine through clear as day. The specificity and micro-macro balance evoke a worldliness that blends well with the country trappings, like a Kinks song transposed to the heartland. Tenille Townes sounds way more like Julien Baker than either artists’ fanbase would like to admit.
[7]
Tim de Reuse: In the bridge, Townes laments: “I don’t know the reasons why / I’m the one who’s driving by / and she’s the one on the corner of 18th Street,” and then cuts it off without a moment’s consideration as to what any of those reasons might be, as if the factors that cause people to end up without a place to sleep are random and unknowable. To make such a revelation out of the idea that homeless people are people, and then have absolutely nothing to say past that — ah, how quintessentially 21st-century!
[4]
Alex Clifton: Look, I love a good Message Song, but I’m not sure about “Somebody’s Daughter.” It’s fine, capable, but by the time the outro hits the entire song passes out of my head. If your goal is to make a message about homelessness stick, making it into easy listening might not be the best bet. I hate overly maudlin ballads that turn into after-school specials, so I’m glad this didn’t fall into that trap. I just want a little more from it.
[5]