Nashville's Caitlin Rose takes album Own Side Now on UK Tour

Source: The List (Issue 667)
Date: 15 September 2010
Written by: Nicola Meighan

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This article is from 2010.

Nashville's Caitlin Rose takes album Own Side Now on UK Tour

Glasgow date for 21-year-old singer-songwriter

Nashville songbird Caitlin Rose is trapped in a Bristol Travelodge. Nursing a hangover, and with only Desperate Housewives for company, the 21-year-old singer-songwriter isn’t quite relishing life on the road. ‘There’s some kind of construction and lots of shouting going on outside,’ she notes. ‘It’s very loud and obnoxious.’ Such importunate surroundings are at odds with the soulful, clarion country music of Own Side Now, her debut album, which has just been released to blanket adulation.

Does Rose think that travelling will impact on her future songs? ‘Well, there’s a lot of folk music over here,’ she considers, ‘and that’s hard not to pick up.’ (The List fervently hopes she means the likes of Laura Marling as opposed to, let’s say, morris dancing). ‘I’ve been writing about some very American things though,’ she continues. Like? ‘Like rodeo clowns,’ she offers. ‘I guess I’m a little homesick.’ Has she at least packed some home comforts for the tour bus? ‘I’m reading The Immoralist by Andre Gide – not exactly comforting,’ she ventures, ‘and I brought The Palm at the End of the Mind by Wallace Stevens, which I really enjoy.

It comes as little surprise that Rose holds poetry close to her heart: her lyricism is vivid, universal and vulnerable, as evinced on recent single ‘For The Rabbits’ (‘fall back into my desperate arms’) which was written when she was only 16. Its clarity is reinforced by Rose’s genuinely startling voice. Those Patsy Cline and Linda Ronstadt comparisons aren’t so wide of the mark. Her congenial Fleetwood Mac homages and gigs with Phosphorescent and Bill Callahan may have won her many hipster fans, but Rose has the markings of a superstar. Ego notwithstanding, that is. Did she realise her debut would make such a splash? ‘I’m surprised when anyone likes the record.’

Captains Rest, Glasgow, Fri 1 Oct.

This article is from 2010.

More: Music, Rock (Music), Pop (Music), Caitlin Rose