Mason Jennings’ next album was Boneclouds. It is more “pop” than his earlier albums. But that isn’t to take anything away from it. I want to focus on one song, “If You Ain’t Got Love.” The title makes it sound like just another love song. But it is actually written to the singer’s child who is born with a heart problem and may die.

In the song, the child survives. But maybe that is just an imagining. The point of the song is that love is something that transcends life and death. But also in the song is a theme that runs through all of Jennings’ work: that all we have is the present and we must grab onto it. That’s probably why I think later when the child jumps in the lake, it isn’t real. I imagine the singer in the hospital, loving that baby for what may be only minutes. But since love is eternal, it doesn’t end with the death.

I suspect most people will hear the song rather differently — and more positively — than I do. Regardless of how you see it, “If You Ain’t Got Love” is heartbreakingly beautiful.

Today, we reach Mason Jennings’ fourth album, Use Your Voice. It’s a nice album. But I don’t think it is as strong as the earlier albums. Thom Jurek at All Music appears to disagree with me. I haven’t read his review, but I saw he gave the album four and a half stars. If you know All Music at all, you know that four and a half stars is what they give to albums that they think are masterpieces, but which are not universally acknowledged as masterpieces. So The Beatles’ Rubber Soul gets five stars, but American Music Club’s United Kingdom only gets four and half stars. It’s strange, but I’ve noticed it again and again. It isn’t an accident.

Anyway, I can see giving Use Your Voice four and a half stars because it is a very pleasant album. But mostly I just want Mason Jennings to get over that woman who dumped him. There’s just far too much of that. However, one of those songs, “Fourteen Pictures,” is transcendent. These are great lyrics:

You don’t need the rest of the song with lyrics that evocative.

There’s also a flat out love song in “Empire Builder” that even makes me think that love may be a real thing. And then he does “Keepin It Real” just to remind me what a fraud love and love songs are, even if I do like the guitar solo.

In a sense, the high point of the album is “Ballad Of Paul And Sheila,” about Paul Wellstone and his wife Sheila’s death in a plane crash. It is a fitting tribute to a great statesman. You should really listen to it.

But the last three songs on the album are different and I wonder if this is the direction that he was headed in. They aren’t especially about anything. Or, most likely, they are so personal that I can’t understand them. But they speak to a man who is searching. And that’s when people create their greatest art. So off of Use Your Voice, I’ve decided to highlight “Drinking as Religion.”

After spending seven hours editing highly technical material and managing what feels like a million things, it’s hard to come back here and write about anything but myself. Or to just ramble about the state of the world. But I have these music and anniversary posts to do. I still kind of enjoy them. That’s especially true of the music posts when I’m doing someone like Mason Jennings.

The truth is that I can imagine meeting him in a bar. We both slump down across from each other on those wooden benches that the best bars have. And we wouldn’t even have to talk. He’s ten years younger than I am, but we’re both old enough to know the truth of life, which is a quiet acceptance of the way things are. We have no illusions that the universe can be any other way. We just drink our pints and leave. And we go out and continue on doing what we do. Because that is what we were born to do. There are pleasures, certainly. But mostly, there is regret. And the regret just gets bigger and bigger until we think it is more massive than our souls.

Mason Jennings’ fourth album was Simple Life. Yesterday, I had the thought that he sounded a lot like Nick Drake. Obviously I’m not talking about his voice or guitar style. But his outlook on life. That feeling is even more clear on this album. And what’s amazing is that he wasn’t even thirty when he made the album. But then, I’ve always been a slow learner.

Today, I’m featuring “Hospitals and Jails” off Simple Life — a song that tells the story of true love. But in a Jacques Brel twist, we learn in the last verse that she is gone and that he never managed to tell her that without her, he was damned to hospitals and jails. It’s a beautiful song.

In 2002, Mason Jennings released his third album, Century Spring. It sounds like he arrived in this album. He just sounds so confident. That isn’t to put down the previous albums, which I think are great. But it’s hard not to think that Mason Jennings’ life is going pretty well at this point. It all makes me think that I’m going to have to revisit this guy in much greater detail when I have more time. It’s always nice to follow an artist who grows, and that’s definitely the case of Jennings from his first album through to Century Spring. I’m curious what tomorrow will bring.

Today, we listen to “Living in the Moment.” I assume that it was meant to be the single from the album. It’s so sweet. It seems to reflect the kind of life that I want to have. I want to be the guy who tells everyone, “No! You’ve got it all wrong: this is the perfect life!” Of course, the thought of living in the moment with the friends I love sounds like something too far removed from reality. But it sounds like a lovely dream

But he is completely right that you can’t construct a meaningful life all by yourself. We are all social — even those who consider ourselves misanthropists.

Geez! I’ve spent half the day dealing with my publisher. I’ve written over a thousand words explaining in some detail just what is going on, but I’m not sure I will publish it. There’s one thing about this woman: she loves attention, which is not surprising because she literally has no friends. In my article I am quite explicit about who she is and what she’s done. But I just want her gone from my life. I get no joy out of fighting with her, but it’s clear she does, since anger is about the only thing that she has left in her life.

So let’s move on to Mason Jennings’s second album, Birds Flying Away. It is much more of a regular folk album than his first album. But I’m not going to spend time analyzing it. I’m too stressed out. So we are just going to listen to “Train Leaving Gray.” It is very relaxing. And it reminds me that there are people out in the world who try to make things better. And then there are rageaholics who take steroids to make them all that much more horrible.

Have you ever noticed that in dysfunctional families, there will be “good” children and “bad” children. The “good” children can’t do anything wrong. There is a set narrative for them. If one of them gets caught shoplifting, it is just because of that bad kid that they are hanging around. And the “bad” children can’t do anything right. If one of them graduates at the top of their class, it will result in at best a grudging “congratulations.” That’s where I’m at, but I’m not beaten down. And that just makes this woman all the more hostile.

But “Train Leaving Gray” is a beautiful song and a good reminder that there are nice things in the world.