KAT GOLDMAN
The Workingman’s Blues
The Workingman’s Blues, the latest album by Toronto-based singer-songwriter Kat
Goldman, is an interesting concept album that I gather is based on a difficult
relationship she had while living in Boston. As Kat writes in the liner notes, “My
anger at the Workingman ultimately had nowhere to go but to turn into
compassion, otherwise I knew I would never escape my own suffering… I have
tried to tell his story to the best of my ability. The rest of his story, I
hope, will be his to tell. I will always love him, and I will never forget him.”
In “Take It Down the Line,”
the opening track, Kat seems to be writing from the Workingman’s perspective as
he describes working as a truck driver, wanting to escape a generational cycle
of violence/abuse, and a desire to start a family of his own.
But most of the other
songs are written from the perspective of the woman attempting to maintain and,
ultimately, escape from her relationship with the Workingman. These include “Release
Me,” in which she tells him “you’re leaving me alone and broken-hearted”; “Put
Your Toolbox Down,” in which she seems to be craving his attention; and “The
Workingman’s Blues,” in which she begins to express compassion for him and his
personal history and an understanding that the relationship really has no
future.
This understanding
continues to develop over several songs until “It’s Ovaah,” in which she declares to
him that the relationship is over and that she’s moving on. But, in “The One to
Dream,” she also lets him know that he will always be a part of her; and in “Mr.
Right,” she wishes him well and gives thanks for the good times they had
together.
In the finale, “Don’t Know
Where I’m Bound,” she’s not only given up on the dream of the relationship, but on the
American dream as well, as she declares her intent to return to Canada. I don’t
know when Kat wrote this last song, but it almost seems like an exiled Canadian’s
political commentary in the Trumpian era.
Much of the album has a
seemingly (and appropriate) working class rock ‘n’ roll vibe.
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