Symbolism…
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[5.89]
Thomas Inskeep: At a point when most of his peers are being put out to commercial pasture (cf. the likes of even former superstar Alan Jackson), McGraw has somehow managed a massive comeback while making some of the most traditional music of his career, like last year’s “Meanwhile Back at Mama’s” and now this. “Diamond Rings” is anchored by a ’70s-style organ — this is almost Stax-y country — while McGraw laments the things that don’t seem to go together, like the subjects of the title, and “me and you.” Dunn provides able harmony vocals reminiscent of McGraw’s wife, Faith Hill.
[8]
Alfred Soto: “Meanwhile Back at Mama’s” a rare grace note, he’s back to diamond rings and old barstools and watery whiskey and cokes. The arrangement’s too static to stimulate his interest; he could be handcuffed to the barstool.
[4]
Luisa Lopez: The imagery of mainstream country songs has always felt easy to mock: you have your girl, your truck and your drink, and you might shake them up but it’s hard to make the thing that comes out feel new. The trick is to shoot it full of slanted meaning, the strange and sometimes ridiculous ways we feel about ourselves and everyone else, the kind of things so compelling there’s nothing to do but turn them into songs. So backed up by a pain that goes on long after everything else has stopped, this manages. By taking easy pictures and turning them into memories, and filling the holes of a heart that’s falling asleep with chords that hardly go anywhere at all, this becomes something real. What ridiculous things to mix, but what a beautiful sad little song.
[5]
Brad Shoup: Sounds like an adultery tune. Everything hangs on that, though, because otherwise it’s tough to peg much to the titular images. The chorus hovers like a particularly contemplative worship tune; sadly, Dunn and McGraw are too reverent toward each other’s pitch. A decent little sketch, but way too much is left unsaid.
[5]
Ian Mathers: Sadly I doubt he’ll ever top the Nelly collaboration, but this is lovely, comfortably worn in and at ease with its heartache. Songs about weariness (sonically or thematically) don’t get enough love, I think. You can have a perfectly happy, functioning romantic relationship and no relevant history and a song like “Diamond Rings and Old Barstools” can still twinge somewhere deep down inside. “I guess some things just don’t mix like you hope” is a decent summation of most disappointments and regrets in life, after all.
[9]
Anthony Easton: I am glad that the lovers at a bar narrative, which had previously been known as a place for joke antagonism (see “Parallel Bars” by Robbie Fulks and Kelly Willis, or Hayes Carll’s “Another Like You,” among others), has been remade as a genuine weepie. The lyrical details here aren’t as bitter as those two songs, they aren’t as rueful as Conway/Loretta, and they don’t have the sexually destructive exhaustion of late Tammy and George. It’s a good song, but a much lesser one.
[6]
Josh Langhoff: I can’t recall another country song in 7/4 time, so way to sneak that in! Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash. But alas, “Diamond Rings” has nothing to say about love, compatibility, mixology, the time-space continuum, the queen-fool paradigm, unusual meters, or anything else it accidentally brushes against. The musicians, feeling part of the scenery, pick up that sense of resignation and slouch across the bar with it. “The wrongs and rights, the highs and lows” — these are things that exist, we’ve been told. It figures Tim’s ideal of love is watered down whiskey and Coke.
[3]
Micha Cavaseno: Due to my unhealthy addiction to the TV series Nashville I am naturally projecting that Tim has GOT to be the spiritual inspiration for tragic yet well-intended meatheaded bro-dude Luke “Three” Wheeler (the show’s joke, not mine). So this isn’t just a pretty standard affair — “well, damn, gotta cry about why the relationship just can’t work between us despite the fact we tried” — but the upcoming Luke single that will be on a compilation CD that I grab from Best Buy, much to my growing sense of role conflict. But those songs are usually exceptional, so I can live with that.
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: The most unexpected things make me feel nostalgic for my hometown, and none of them catch me off guard like Tim McGraw’s voice. He wasn’t either of my parent’s favorite — my mom bought every Dwight Yoakam CD, my Dad played the Hootie and the Blowfish album way more in his truck — but he was always there, coming out of the country station or The Pizza Place’s TV that was locked on CMT. This song is straightforward breakup material, a dude staring into his beer and sorta smirking through the pain, though never being too much of a downer. Delivered by anyone else, I’d probably think it was fine enough, but hearing McGraw sing it hits me harder, making me like it more than I probably should. That’s the beauty of it, though.
[6]