Addicts often have an unhealthy relationship with a particular substance and can’t quite get the high they need. “Love Addict,” therefore, is the perfect title for a Caitlin Cannon album that contains few happy endings and many a struggle. It’s sometimes provocative, sometimes classy and classic, and the song with the happiest ending might have the trickiest story behind it.
The title track is one of the more explicit country songs that isn’t a novelty, but that’s okay. Listening to it feels like listening to a frustrated forty-something woman finally comfortable to go off on a delicate subject. “Why can’t a woman just get to fuck?/ One night together and I fall in love,” Cannon sings, frustrated with her biology and psychology.
“I just don’t want women to give in to this messaging that when you’re 40 you’re finished and no longer desirable,” said Cannon. “I did want the record to be sexy but I don’t want it to negate the depth.”
The depth is there. Of the two studies mentioned earlier, the psychology dominates most of the album.
“Once the word is said/it’s the beginning of the end,” Cannon sings on “I Wouldn’t Say I Love You.”
“And if you never gave a damn/help me let go of what I never had,” she adds of “Let it Hurt Some.” “Gravity promises pain,” she sings on “Impact.” When it comes to true love, Cannon does an incredible job talking herself out of it.
“I think it is harder for me to access a positive emotion and trust it,” said Cannon. “I want to keep it real so I don’t become made a fool of my own trust in a feeling in love that might be fleeting. I think that’s a defense mechanism that hasn’t really served me well.”
Her definition of real love, the kind that survives infatuation, is devastating.
“How long are you willing to do the dance of projecting your childhood trauma onto each other and healing each other,” she asked. “And how long are you willing to stay in that? That’s essentially real love. I don’t know if I have that to give.”
Real love does feature on the album twice, once in a complicated fantasy and once as a tragic almost-true story.
“Waiting,” based on Cannon’s brother who is serving life without parole, shows up at the end of the album as a demo. It’s a particularly sad and well-written entry into the country prison song genre that imagines a high school sweetheart keeping in touch with her man on the inside. The song’s tragic ending is imagined, but that much is true. The reality may be even more tragic: despite being a juvenile, Cannon’s brother is never getting out.
“I told that story basically to express his love for her. They’re very much a part of each other’s lives,” said Cannon. “It’s devestating when your best friend and brother is in prison with life without parole and doesn’t have the opportunity to have a real relationship. It doesn’t make sense that someone who is going to spend the rest of their life in prison but becoming someone so worthy of that love. So I tried to create an afterlife scenario.”
She describes “Waiting,” of which a studio version was released on an EP last year, as the only true love song on the album.
Of the new tracks, “Room 309” comes the closest to sounding like a true love song. After a one night stand with a star, a musician writes a song about it and gets big. Love blossoms from there. The true story is more complicated.
Cannon cowrote the song with Shawn Camp, but she also wrote the song about Camp. The couple in the song are performing duets and tucking their kids in at night. Camp declined to play on the track. Cannon hoped it could lead to a bigger role in the music industry for her, but so far, it’s only led to one song.
“My message to every single girl chasing a carrot dangling in front of them: ‘Bless that carrot for getting you there but you’re going to have to work three times as hard as everyone else just like Reba did,” said Cannon. “None of those guys are coming to save you. You will never truly be able to barter in that currency in this business. You have to put everything into your art and at least you have that.”
Not all feelings about the experience are bitter, however.
“I happen to love the verse we wrote,” Cannon added. “I think it’s better than I would’ve done on my own. Ironically, I think I needed him for that happy ending.”
“My Own Company” is the best new song on the album because it focuses on the relationship Cannon, someone who attends 12 step programs and is working on doing more good, is clearly focused on most.
“I started writing that when Naomi Judd left us,” said Cannon. “It reminded me of the 2008 housing crisis when I was working in New York. People were jumping out of windows to their death because they were waking up to my net worth. You really have to have something you can cling to in yourself.”
Cannon added that she appreciated that the Judd family was so open with mental health. With “Love Addict” and this interview, Cannon adds to that legacy. Few albums have ever laid so bare a self-inflicted loneliness and tragic but realistic assessment of what “real love” is. It’s hard to listen to. And yet for me, it’s relatable in ways few other albums are. I, too, have some childhood trauma to project and a tendency to keep to myself. Yes, sometimes even harder days. Works like this are meant for those days. Art that meets you on those days is something to cling to.
Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Caitlin Cannon and the songs we discussed, starting with “I Wouldn’t Say I Love You,” which tries hard to avoid ending the beginning of a relationship. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Tuesday at 12pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.caitlincannonmusic.com for more.
Country Pocket 