Sometimes Dogs Bark at Nothing by JP Harris | Album Review
JP Harris’s third album beautifully displays the highs and lows of a former freight hopper.
Listen to Sometimes Dogs Bark at Nothing on Apple Music and Spotify.
The free roaming lifestyle of JP Harris (Joshua Pless Harris) is something that feels as if it was taken straight out of folktales from the turn of the 20th century. Due to his parent’s work, Harris would move several time before they settled in Las Vegas, Nevada. It would in Vegas where a 14 year old JP would run away to start his vagabond lifestyle. Initially stationing in Oakland, California for its punk scene, he would turn this into a cross-country venture finally arriving in a small town in Vermont. It would be there where JP would hone his craft as a carpenter and restoration worker. During this time period, he lived in cabins free of electricity and running water. This has since changed after his move to Nashville, Tennessee. It seems fitting that the folk/country music that he creates now found its genesis during his time wandering the United States:
“Yeah, I actually got started playing country music when I was a teenager, before I left home… When I hit the road, like I said, I didn’t live anywhere that had any electricity for about 13 years, so real quickly I realized that I needed a guitar and then real quickly I realized that it wasn’t fun to play power chords on the guitar anymore when you have an acoustic guitar and you’re around a campfire… So, I started learning some old Roger Miller tunes, and some Hank Williams stuff.”
JP’s third record, Sometimes Dogs Bark At Nothing, does a fantastic job portraying the demons and joys surrounding this isolated transient life.
Harris opens the album a wild tale of drug use with “JP’s Florida Blues #1”. There is a powerful blend of gospel, rock, and country that really lights a fire under the song. Joshua immediately paints the imagine of a man ravaged by his drug use and constantly on the prowl from the next high. It oozes an unhinged sense of mania as he sings on trying to keep the feeling alive, “It’s reds and blues; uppers, downers/ Left-ers, right-ers; I don’t know who’s right/ But I’m trying to hold on to what little bit of soul I’ve got/ Them expired credit cards and rolled-up singles/ Backwater bad deals and men’s room mingles.” The music and Harris’s lyricism really gives the song wonderfully evoke the rock bottom place this addiction has brought him..
JP gives “Lady in the Spotlight” a lightness with jingle of mandolins and acoustic guitars. Because of the warmth that the instrumentation provides, it gives the song a lace-like intricacy. Harris weaves a cautionary tale of a woman tainted by the vices that powerful men put before her all surrounding the promise of stardom. The wide-eyed innocence of this woman is slowly tainted by drugs and the quid pro quo nature of the men in power. I really appreciate the production Harris chose for this song. I feels as if you are slowly watching this white lace get stained by the greedy and lust of the world.
“When I Quit Drinking” sees Harris waxing on a life of sobriety. JP’s shaky vocal style works well to add a fragility to this struggle with alcoholism. You can hear his inspiration from artists such as Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings in the western treatment that he gives this track. The song’s chorus highlights the joys of what this new found soberity could bring him, “Bar mirror shows me/ The old me that had your love back then/ When I quit drinkin’/ I start thinkin’ about startin’ up again.” At the same point in time, the fears of depression seeping back in brings trepidation to giving up his vice completely.
“Long Ways Back” goes more in the direction of swing sonically. This more slow burn sound brings to mind mid-century slow dances which brings the proper amount of heaviness to JP’s story of living his transient lifestyle. The song does well to paint this image of a man wandering the world without a home or plan. The opening wonderfully shows off the hardships of this vagabond lifestyle, “Here come the clouds/ Here comes the rain/ It’s hard travelin’ outside/ But to me it’s all the same/ Just a long ways back/ From here to yesterday.” This is one of my favorites lyrically off the record.
The title track, “Sometimes Dogs Bark at Nothing”, takes an outside look at the various hardships life deals us. Harris gives the song a gentle vulnerability through its use of just acoustic and slide guitar. The metaphors of the firefly attracting a mate in vane or the woodpecker pecking at metal stove pipes all circle back to the central idea of working off instinct for better or worse. It’s this instinctual nature that Harris paints this man’s unfaithful actions with, “Sometimes dogs bark at nothin’… Sometimes a girl’s heart gets busted/ By a boy that she once trusted/ Ain’t no reason ‘cept that he was born a man/ Yeah, there ain’t no reason ‘cept that he was born a man.” This is another favorite of mine from its songwriting and frail presentation.
We go full knee-slapper on the rockabilly “Hard Road”. The electric guitars and driving percussion really give the song an infectious momentum that you can’t help but move to. Harris uses each verse and chorus to create a tale of someone trying to escape their dirty deeds. Again, JP does an amazing job painting a vivid story of each of these three people’s hard roads ahead. I particularly loved the line, “She took the black out the berry and swizzled the juice/ She took the rich boys home for her particular use.” This storytelling blended with the raucous country styling really makes the song an attention getter.
“I Only Drink Alone” is a song about hiding your pain. JP goes with a more mellow decorum sonically. The twinkle of piano, hum of electric guitar, and soft percussion sell this low point in his life. You could easily imagine this whisky coated tearjerker being played live at a dive bar. Instead of releasing these pend up emotions around others, Harris opts to pour out these demons in the safety of his own home. There is a lot of pain you can feel through his closing lines around the subject, “Oh I don’t need no one but me/ To reminisce on how things used to be/ To revel in this misery and curse this bottle quietly/ Oh I only drink alone.”
“Runaway” wonderfully details JP’s earlier life as a free roaming rail hopper. There is an arid raggedness to the backing instrumentation. It brings to mind roaming through the southwest to find your next homestead. I really liked his vocals paired with the female backing vocals in the chorus. It gives the song a warmth that matches his reverence to his past. His words accentuate his prior lifestyle of taking one off jobs and never staying in one place too long. Harris takes rather lighthearted look around his memories of moving around unbound, “Gettin’ on down at the local bar/ Tellin’ lies on an old guitar/ No last names, no Christmas cards/ No one wonderin’ where I’ve gone.” I really enjoyed the tenderness JP shows vocally here.
We get an ode to a love found at the wrong point in time with “Miss Jeanne-Marie”. JP opts to go for a more piano ballad route with this subject matter. You can hear his sorrow around how his actions destroyed the affection she once had for him, “With no chance it’d last forever/ She held fast against the weather/ Through his storms until her heart was broke/ Scattered on the ground.” His reverence for her kind heart adds an additional layer of bittersweetness to the song. This is one of the only songs on the album that feels a bit flat. I wish there was more dynamics instrumentally to sell his pain over the loss of this love. It’s not a bad song, but it just feels like it doesn’t go anywhere musically.
The final track on the album, “Jimmy’s Dead and Gone”, pays respects to his old freight hopping lifestyle. I love the thick acoustic opening to this track. It vividly brings to mind the quick chug of a freight train. This quickly erupts into fast driving honky tonk vibe as the song progresses. JP’s songwriting casts this lifestyle in both adventurous yet dangerous point of view. His chorus, “Still got the slack action bangin’ in my brain/ Well ol’ Jimmy’s dead and gone/ But this hobo rambles on/ I said you’re goddamn right, wrote another song about a train,” drives home that while that part of his life is over, he still thinks fondly of those days. It’s a fantastic closer to this project.
I really liked JP’s songwriting through out this project. He has a wonderful way to paint his stories of alcoholism, drug-use, freight hopping, and heartbreak through the lens of country, western, and folk music. His ability to emote these feelings of depression, adventure, and hardship takes each song to another level. Aside from the lackluster sound of “Miss Jeanne-Marie”, the album is a fantastic piece of country Americana. If you are a fan of the more rustic sounds in country music, then you will really like this project. I look forward to listening to the rest of Harris’s catalog. My overall thoughts on the album:
Loved it: “JP’s Florida Blues #1”, “Lady in the Spotlight”, “Long Ways Back”, “Sometimes Dogs Bark at Nothing”, “Hard Road”, “Runaway” & “Jimmy’s Dead and Gone”
Liked it: “When I Quit Drinking” & “I Only Drink Alone”,
Disliked it: “Miss Jeanne-Marie”
My overall rating: 8.0 out of 10.
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