In support of melancholy

I am listening to John Fullbright this week. I love everything about what I'm hearing. The album is Songs. It's not new (2014) and I have listened to it before, but I revisited a couple songs and thought that it was time to hear the whole album album again. Favorite songs include Happy, When You're Here, She Knows, and The One That Lives Too Far. I don't really care to categorize the music other than to say that it's good. There are lyrics that affect me. In Happy he states that "Every time I try to write a song, I can’t seem to get a word in edgewise". I don't know what that means, but I know exactly what he means. When You're Here uses the metaphor of the scarecrow to stunning effect. Fullbright expresses things that take his breath away in a brilliant and maybe obtuse way. He can be remarkably wordy when it's required and then turn around on a song like Keeping Hope Alive and make the lyric so sparse yet completely explanatory. Perhaps my favorite is in The One That Lives Too Far in which Fullbright declares that "Some folks make something out of nothing, Some people have to cry too long while others wait beside the window wondering why the wind would blow so strong". It's compelling, it's melancholy and it's remarkably moving. Then there's he voice. It's not a Rufus Wainwright type of instrument (Rufus' has one of THOSE voices), but it's soulful. Fullbright is from Oklahoma and I hear a bit of that in his singing. I also hear echoes of Charlie Rich and a few others. It's rare that I feel up to listening to an entire album. I did on this one.