Joan Osborne continues on her musical journey by looking back as she moves forward. Breakfast in Bed combines her influences of soul music and R&B, which she predominantly explored with her 2002 covers album How Sweet It Is, with songs of yearning and heartbreak, which she gave the Nashville treatment on last year’s Pretty Little Strangers. She is a bold, gifted singer not afraid to tackle classics or mix her own songs alongside.
The album’s title brings to mind a sweet Sunday morning with a loved one, but the title song is emotionally brutal. Previously recorded by Baby Washington and Dusty Springfield, it’s about a woman whose former beau has left for someone else. The narrator loves him and is there to comfort him with “a kiss or three” when he shows up at her door crying. Unfortunately, she can’t see he just uses her to get through the night. In the morning he’s off to go back to his love, while the narrator tries to stop hers from running out the door. She pleads, “What’s your hurry?/ Please don’t eat and run,” but it’s no to avail.
Breakfast in Bed contains songs about the struggles of making a relationship work. They deal with a lover not wanting to stay whether in a location, like Gladys Knight & the Pips “Midnight Train to Georgia,” or, as is usually the case, with a person. On Bill Withers all-time classic “Ain’t No Sunshine,” the narrator wonders and hopes her man comes back this time because the “house just ain’t a home/any time he goes away.” The song has a great organ solo. Hall & Oates “Sara Smile” finds the narrator okay with the break-up, just looking for one more night, “If you feel like leaving you know you can go/ But why don't you stay until tomorrow?”
Two originals find her as different sides of a love triangle.
On “Eliminate the Night” her intense passion finds her willing to be the other woman even though she knows it’s wrong. “No other man in this room tonight/ no other man in this town/ make me say these wicked words/ make me lay my conscience down./ Oh, honey, when it comes to you/ I ain’t got no shame/ you can have me anyway you like/ you can call me by her name.”
Article comments
1 - Glen Boyd
Nice review Bicho. I never would have associated this artist with the sort of R&B vibe described here. Then again, getting your heart broken is about as universal an experience as it gets I suppose. Probably why I'm up so late most of the time actually...
-Glen
2 - El Bicho
She's always had it, Glen, but the radio only ever played "One of Us". Not to knock it, because it's a good pop song, but she has much better ones than that on "Relish." Go to Amazon or somewhere and give her a listen.
3 - Donald Gibson
I've seen Joan Osborne in concert twice and both times I was blown away by her vocal versatility. She could tackle Soul to Rock and everywhere in between.
I enjoyed your review very much.
-Donald
4 - Mark Saleski
...but she has much better ones than that on "Relish."
true. if you listen to the stuff she's done with The Dead, it's all very different...and great!
5 - Rob
It's too bad that "One Of Us" is what the majority of people out there know Joan Osborne for. The song's okay, but damn she's got so much more going on musically and vocally. When I first heard Relish, it blew me away. I was expecting a grungy-folk-pop album. I was happily surprised. Joan's got a set of pipes on her and a presence that'll make you weak at the knees! Well, it made my knees give anyway.
6 - Mat Brewster
I never cared for that "one of us" song (though anecdotally I do recall a naive lady once saying she was proud that MTV was playing a Christian song, I held my tongue not asking if she had actually listened to the lyrics.)
Not surprisingly I love her work with the Dead and Phil Lesh. I was knocked out by her rendition of "attics of my life" a few years back.