Gordy the moose reviews some of his favourite new submissions to the Roots Music Canada virtual mailbox.
Sarah Jane Scouten released Transmutations on Remembrance Day, and that’s no doubt because the EP is really a vehicle for its one new song, “Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry,” a song about a woman who nearly dies giving birth, only to become a worker in a munitions factory while her son fights and dies in the First World War.
“We made the bullets, we made the guns, we wed the fathers, and we raised the sons. I lost a gallon of blood on the bedroom floor, but I never raised a man to be an instrument of war,” Sarah Jane sings in a slightly warbly, emotion-filled voice that recalls Iris DeMent’s.
“They say that Adam made Eve, from his very own rib her body, but I know that that just can’t be, ’cause I made a man, and it nearly killed me.”
You don’t have to be a mother or patriot to feel your hair stand on end listening to this. The song is at once sweet and devastating, transporting the listener back to an era we often think of as a simpler time, but one marked by unimaginable tragedy.
The rest of the tracks on the EP are live off the floor versions of songs from Sarah Jane’s 2023 album Turned to Gold, namely “Little Band of Gold,” “My Heart Ain’t Broken” “Roses and Carnations” and “Wanderlust,” all recorded at Northern Cowboys Studio in Sheffield.
The versions feature spare acoustic instrumentation and Sarah Jane’s raw emotional singing right up front without the polished production to take the edge off.
And for my money, that’s the best way to hear Sarah Jane.
