Alan Horvath | Music Review by Jon DiMarco

The Jon DiMarco Song Review | May 1999
Right as Rain

Song Genre: Soft Rock

What it is:
A tune with a tune + good lyrics, plus some great bass work.

Experience teaches that...
It's hard to write a song about 'life' without sounding pedantic or condescending. To his worthy credit, this guy knows how to do words -- this song talks about people and their general loneliness, it offers philosphies and large ideas, but you never feel lectured to. The song feels like a late-night conversation in a diner, after you run out of movies to talk about and start into those long discussions about the odd ways of life.

The music, now:
Acoustic guitar. Bass. Voice. That's it. Sure sounds like more, though. The guitar work is intricate and fitting -- no crazy fingerpicking, no show-off stuff -- just a good rhythm, well-placed mutes and downstrokes. It works. And the bass is great, very melodic and moving. It keeps the song running along so naturally you couldn't imagine it not there.

Singing is...
The voice is thick and rather easygoing. That's partly why the song has such a honest coversational feel. The chorus melody rises up and over the music in a satisfying sweep. The verse singing is melodic talking. In the verse parts, there's one spot where one low note seems to be just a bit too low to hit. All the other notes are hit without strain, so the small struggle to hit that low, low, low pitch stands out more.

The words:
Well, more of what I said up there. It's meaningful, but nowhere near a lecture. It's a song that echoes those lonely feelings common to most people: you're by yourself, in a car or a donut shop, watching all the pairs and trios and groups of people passing through. You're the odd one alone.

All alone tonight, in my El Camino ... feeling the pain, right as rain. Cool. Plus, the line describing an old locket with a past love as "pathos on a chain" is my kind of wit. Pathos on a chain, yeah! Symbolism in buckets if you want it. The words are a bit wistful, yet hopeful at the end. It's good writing.

Overall:
Yup, don't let the 'soft rock' tag scare ya I'd call it folk, because 'soft rock' is a term invented by some radio stations, denoting an inoffensive format that offices won't be scared to pipe through the ceiling speakers. C'mon -- bass, acoustic guitar, it's folky! It's not Michael Bolton (that soft rock needs a 164,000-track studio, 9 engineers, a full orchestra, and 30 session musicians).

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