Australian singer-songwriter and all-around badass Kasey Chambers has just released a bundle: an album of new material called Backbone and an audiobook titled Don’t Be a Dickhead; reportedly, the book is full of QR codes that take readers to the narrative’s correlating songs. The publicity materials say, “Readers can experience the book and the album the way Kasey wrote it, together. The audiobook also delivers a unique listener experience, including Kasey reading and performing songs.”
Chambers has always been provocative, even if it was unintentional. When I first saw her perform live more than 20 years ago, she was telling a vulgar limerick in a public park that concerned telling a man to wash his penis before sticking it in her to a family audience. She wasn’t trying to shock. Her father stood behind her as he was the guitar player in her band. She plainly thought the poem was entertaining enough that its subject matter was not necessarily relevant. There is nothing as explicitly obscene on the new record, although I am curious about the illustration of the title dickhead of her book.
The new record’s tracks are primarily autobiographical and personal. There are songs about marriage and commitment (“For Better or Worse”, “Dart n Feather”) and a clever collaboration with her ex-husband Shane Nicholson called “The Divorce Song”, songs about or to her children (“Arlo”, “Silverado Girl”), God and religion (“Broken Cup”, “My Kingdom Come”, “Something to Believe In”), metaphorical ones about an all-consuming love and what it all means (“A Love Like Springsteen”, “Little Red Riding Hood”), and a lengthy, intense cover of Eminem‘s “Lose Yourself”. One can take them as a whole to understand how the songwriter sees the world and her relation to it from various points of view over time.
The singers’ lyrics are literate and alliterate. She’s not afraid to be sincere and silly at the same time. Kasey Chambers will cite nursery rhythm couplets, well-known songs, the names of constellations, and various other poetic tropes to convey deep feelings. Consider the following verse from the title cut, “And the boxcar disappeared with a wave from the engineer / And I always came back for the coin on the track / Cos it made me a millionaire / Oh my backbone take me back home.” The singer recalls images from her youth without needing to explain. She has become hardened with age but has not forgotten her past. The girl inside is gone but still present. The contradiction is the point.
Chambers provides the lead vocals and plays lead acoustic guitar and banjo. Brady Blade backs her on drums and percussion, Jeff McCormack on bass, Sam Teskey on electric and slide guitars, Brandon Dodd on various stringed instruments, Bill Chambers (her dad) on Dobro and mandolin, and a few other others on multiple cuts. Most of the players also provide backup vocals as needed. While musically, this offers a varied selection of instrumentalists and singers, Chambers’ production makes it all a singular portrait of herself. Without the book, one hears the music as if it were a portrait of Chambers. She is “the desert child” of the subtitle. Presumably, the accompanying volume does little to suggest otherwise.
Backbone is the Australian musician’s 13th album. Kasey Chambers has won numerous awards in her own country and was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame. More than ten years ago, she published an autobiography, A Little Bird Told Me… (2011). One can approach her latest effort as a continuation and expansion of the first.