The Alternate Routes :: "The Black and the White"

I have been listening incessantly to the album Good and Reckless and True from The Alternate Routes these past few weeks (I told you I'd be talking more about them). For some reason it sounds exceedingly good to me here in early June, especially in my car. Although the album swings effortlessly from rollicking to pensive, the common thread that I find appealing is the earnest commitment to simply playing their blessed hearts out.

This particular track is penultimate on the album, and I freaking love it. Over a bittersweet piano melody, it is melancholy, stripped, and a bit ironic (is there ever that one exact time when you are over someone? Or is it usually just a bit of self-preserving delusion? The last verse seems to confirm that bit of wishful thinking) . . .

The Black and The White - The Alternate Routes

Well, it's five of 9:00 and I'm over you
I wanna do whatever this empty bottle tells me to
And I'm so excited that I feel no pain
And finally everything's right in place in my heart again
And there are no ends I can see
There's nothing but the summer in me

Sing hey-la-de-day
I come out tonight
I look to get lost in the back and the white
But the colors in me remembering when
I start looking over my shoulder again
Over your shoulder

And it's a holiday weekend
Only 12:25
I walk down to this neighborhood place and I'm feeling alive
And it's trapped in the alley and the lighting is fair
The bartender's laughing with strangers
I reach for my wallet, I pull up a chair
Singin' luck be a lady, this is where I belong
And I know that you're somewhere singing along

Sing hey-la-de-day
I come out tonight
I look to get lost in the back and the white
But the colors in me remembering when
I start looking over my shoulder again
Sing over your shoulder

Where there once was a dozen
now there's only a few
And it's just passed 1:30 and I'm over you
And there in a crosstown shadow as I steal away
I let a Jim shot of whiskey
take a good man back to his yesterdays
It starts me on thinking that you should have stayed
And I think about sleeping tonight in the bed that you made

Sing hey-la-de-day
I come out tonight
I look to get lost in the back and the white
But the colors in me remembering when
I start looking over my shoulder again

I'm over your shoulder
It's over your shoulder

Tim Warren: vocals & acoustic guitar
Eric Donnelly: piano

BONUS: Check out some great acoustic video here