Review Summary: Nothing ever stays the same.
Passage Du Desir – which translates to “Passage of Desire” – feels like Sturgill Simpson’s long-awaited follow-up to his 2016 breakthrough album
A Sailor’s Guide to the Earth. Don’t tell that to Sturgill, though; it would seem through his perpetual state of musical metamorphosis and his most recent moniker change to “Johnny Blue Skies” that he is ready to move on from that era of his life entirely, along with all of the fame that it brought him. There’s a song on
Passage Du Desir called ‘Who I Am’ that directly addresses this through carefree acoustic strums and a soulful, bluesy melody: “I've lost everything I am, even my name”, he laments, adding “They don't ask you what your name is when you get up to Heaven / And thank God, I couldn't tell her if I had to who I am.” From the lush and at-times fearsomely psychedelic
Sailor’s Guide to the rockin’, riffin’
Sound & Fury all the way up to the bluegrass-inspired, pandemic-enduring
Cuttin’ Grass volumes and
The Ballad of Dood and Juanita, it’s clear that Simpson doesn’t want to be tied down to a specific musical post. “Been going through changes and finding clarity”, he sings, and then with a sense of sage wisdom, “And comfort in just knowing nothing ever stays the same.”
No matter what musical silo Johnny Blue Skies’ “debut” gets ushered into by fans and critics, it feels like his most personal and poignant release in eight years. Sturgill sings about the mundane domestic bliss of fatherhood on the sunny, lazed ‘Scooter Blues’ (“Spend my mornings making chocolate milk and Eggos / My days at the beach, my nights stepping on Legos”) and escaping his own past (“Gonna hop on my scooter, go down to the store / When people say, “Are you him?” I'll say, “Not anymore”). Perhaps the most emotionally stirring moment comes on the breathtaking ‘Jupiter’s Faerie’ – a ballad with a flourishing string section, driving guitar riffs, and Simpson’s heart wrenching delivery of lyrics about looking up an old friend only to discover that he’s dead: “I searched your name and then I saw the news that there was no more you / I hear there's faeries out on Jupiter, and there was a time that I knew one / But today I'm feeling way down here on Earth, crying tears of love in the light of mourning dawn.” Elsewhere, he weaves through gorgeous wordplay that almost feels poetic, such as “They say that joy is fleeting and pain is forever / How I wish that happiness left scars too” from the jaunty, piano underscored, and string-swept ‘Right Kind of Dream’.
Passage Du Desire seems less about picking musical directions and more about Sturgill coming to terms with where he is in life.
While Johnny Blue Skies may not boast the adventurous songwriting of Sturgill Simpson’s most daring epics, there’s something about
Passage that is honest and comforting. It feels like we’re getting an actual glimpse into his life for the first time in nearly a decade, and while it’s not all rosy (see the nine minute closer about falling out of love with your soul mate), it’s at least all
real. Times change, people change, and music changes – if there’s one thing you owe yourself in this lifetime, it’s to be truthful with yourself and exactly what it is you’re hoping to get out of the present and future. Sturgill Simps- I mean, Johnny Blue Skies – is doing exactly that.
s
