Fitting in is not easy to do for many people. At 6’8”, Ross Thorn quite literally has trouble fitting in. Airplanes and cars are not his friends. There’s no disappearing into the crowd for a man who towers above it. Yet Thorn plays the situation for comedy before making a quick pivot to a more meaningful thought.
“There’s lots of people who have an even harder time fitting in,” said Thorn before listing a few marginalized groups. “Society doesn’t make it easy.”
That transition in our conversation exemplifies two of the reasons Fitting In is such a beautiful work. First, Thorn is confident in his use of humor and his ability to leverage it to make a point. Second, he’s deeply empathetic, even when discussing his own problems. The third selling point of the album is Thorn’s recognition that there’s no shortcut when it comes to emotional processing.
The title track is a radical example of the self love needed to heal. Thorn steps out of his body to sing to himself, ending the song by repeating the phrase “I love you so.”
“It’s a newer thing for me to say to myself,” said Thorn. “It feels really good to get to a place where you can say that.”
Thorn’s songwriting is certainly at its sharpest when he’s involving humor. On the song “Midwestern Goodbye,” Thorn chooses to demonstrate rather than describe a drawn out farewell. There’s even a point where the song comes to a natural end and the music stops. And yet, it continues.
“Goodbyes take forever. We’re all aware of someone who takes 45 minutes standing in the doorway,” Thorn said of his native region. “I think it’s a beautiful cultural phenomenon. I think it’s longing to connection in an area that has brutal winters.”
What starts with a joke ends with a deeper observation. There’s gentle humor like “Midwestern Goodbye” and then there’s cringe-worthy dark humor on “Pick-a-dee-day.” Grandad always said to keep your head up, the song’s logic goes, so any problem is all a perspective of attitude. Thorn goes so far as to tell an orphan to smile. By that point, the lines have even ceased to rhyme. The world view his character has been living with is causing him to crumble.
“It’s inspired, weirdly enough, by The Lion King. Simba’s dad gets trampled in a stampede and then he meets two whimsical characters,” Thorn recounted. He’s not a big fan of Hakuna Matata in the face of such extreme circumstances.
“I think you should worry about that.” said Thorn. “I think that’s something to process.”
“Scripts written by generations before us like ‘man up.’ There’s dangerous things to do or pass along,” said Thorn. He recognizes the importance of a good mindset, especially in the dark stretch we’re living through, but has come to understand that grounding exercises only work if you’re using that ground as a foundation for further work.
“It’s not going to just be breathing exercises, because holy crap, everything is terrible,” said Thorn. “But if we need to get in a good headspace and feel motivated and hopeful, sometimes we have to catch our breath in order to actually make change.”
The most impactful listen on the album is written by Thorn from the perspective of a woman (“An exercise in empathy,” he called it) but sung by The Spine Stealers. “Far Away” is about escaping a bad situation in a worse way. The character meets a man and sees him not for who he is but for the opportunity he represents: “For a fleeting moment/I could find my hope in him./He could take me far away real soon.” She soon finds herself across an ocean and once again dreaming of escape.
“It’s the same stuff because everything you carry with you is there until you face it,” said Thorn. “One of my biggest breakthroughs in therapy in recent years is to sit in discomfort and give it the space and acting with a clear head.”
Thorn, a man who has dealt with some emotional issues and lives the sort of life that allows him to travel far and frequently, thinks the notion that we just need to find greener grass is flawed.
“It’s less escaping and more confronting,” said Thorn. “I don’t think it’s possible to just run away.”
When it comes to the multitude of problems facing the world right now, it may literally be impossible to run away from it all. Not even the would-be trillionaire crowd has built a rocket to Mars yet, and even that would feel isolating. The solution Thorn offers is on the opposite end of the coolness spectrum. “In a world full of anger/I’ll bear a grin,” he sings.
“To be able to find a smile is really a gift,” Thorn said. “I’m able to find that joy and that’s really special.”
That joy doesn’t come from being told to feel joy. Sometimes it’s the result of dark humor at the expense of a Disney classic. Sometimes it’s the result of accidentally terrifying an old woman while dressed as a clown on the railroad tracks in an effort to shoot an album cover. Sometimes it’s even less sexy than that.
“I love you so,” Thorn repeats nine times at the end of his album. If he has to say it that many times for it to sink in, so be it. It seems more effective at helping Thorn smile than any folk wisdom about needing to do so.
Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Ross Thorn and the songs we discussed, starting with the title track, which may be the type of talk we all need to give ourselves. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 4pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://rossthornmusic.com for more.
Country Pocket 