Heartfelt soul-healing.
Over the course of his solo career, Kevin Morby has made a habit of overlaying American landscapes onto the symbols in his music. Little Wide Open, however, may be his most realized and focused work in terms of geographical inspiration. Inspired by leaving the Midwest in his teens to pursue a music career, there is something bittersweet in Morby’s homecoming on the new LP. Unlike Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Into the Great Wide Open,” where two lovers chase their dreams in Los Angeles, Morby returns to his roots as he grapples with the future of his career and relationship amid endless plains and tangled highways. With production from prolific folk-rock innovator Aaron Dessner, Morby employs a deeply conversational writing style over memorable hooks and rich indie-folk orchestration.
Part of the record’s magic lies in its ability to romanticize the mundane. The opening track, “Badlands,” is a direct confrontation with mortality, describing a place “where God could be a dog barking in the dark.” Among vast lavender fields and golden skies, Morby copes with the inconsequentiality of life by finding beauty in the landscape around him. He also references Belinda Carlisle’s ’80s hit “Heaven Is a Place on Earth,” further developing the sense of comfort he finds in the heart of the Bible Belt. Ironically, there is something claustrophobic within all that open space. Those feelings come to the forefront on the title track, where a conversation with his partner explores the hope of escaping suffocation through the anonymity found in small towns.
The songs balance whimsical and daunting subject matter with remarkable ease, demonstrating Morby’s talent for thematic duality. Tracks like “Die Young” reflect on surviving the recklessness of youth and living with the wounds left behind by memory. His interpolation of a poem by the late David Berman feels almost autobiographical, with both artists expressing a desire to live on through the people they love.
Where “Die Young” expresses gratitude for life thus far, songs like “Javelin” and “Dandelion” reveal a more restless side of Morby as he ponders marriage and the years he has spent on the road. He asks, “Am I a has-been, am I a husband?”—a line that eloquently captures the tension within his own identity. Throughout the latter half of the album, Morby draws on imagery from the natural world to further convey that uncertainty.
The album’s closing track, “Field Guide for the Butterflies,” uses the image of insects splattered across the hood of his Ford Econoline as a reflection on the once-reckless pursuit of his dreams, offering a measure of reconciliation with the wounds of his youth.
For Kevin Morby, the Midwest is a liminal space. Its vastness is both mortifying and sublime, where the pain of the past is soothed by familiar backroads and the uncertainty of the future is met with vows and mutual promises. The album’s emotional ebb and flow is equally unsettling and comforting. While Morby’s maturity is evident in his songwriting and craftsmanship, he still embraces every imperfect detail of his voice. Each breathy phrase feels vital, and every crack serves as a reminder that he has arrived exactly where he needs to be: home.
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