The "Horse" Was Brought Down 30 Years Ago

Many things in music are hard to see coming, even in retrospect. In 1996, there was not a mainstream groundswell for rock music in the Americana style. Tom Petty had already cranked out the last of his long run of consistent hit singles, and there was a small bubbling in the underground with bands like The Jayhawks, but the appetite for a band that was a direct link back to Bob Dylan (in both intentions of the phrase) was not something apparent to this young observer.

The Wallflowers were an unlikely choice to be the biggest rock stars of the year, and yet it was "Bringing Down The Horse" that left as big an impact on that year as anyone else in music. Where we might disagree is the degree to which that is something we should talk about as an achievement of the album, as opposed to being singularly the result of "One Headlight". While the album remains a gem of the time, and it was a necessary reinvention of a band that would have otherwise quickly faded away, my thoughts on it are tinted by the fact I haven't considered it their best album since October of the year 2000.

The obvious parallel to draw is that of Bob Dylan, because both father and son are writers of a poetic disposition in a format that doesn't have many literary aspirations. That feels too cheap for my tastes, both because of how obvious such a statement would be, but also because The Wallflowers have always owed more of a debt to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. It would become more noticeable on their next album, but Jakob Dylan's band was more engaged in rock and roll than Bob ever was, at least rock as it evolved past the 1950s. When Bob 'went electric', he was just playing folk music through an amp. The Wallflowers are a rock band through and through, which comes with a different mentality of composing.

There is a muscularity to the guitar punch of "One Headlight", the cutting lead tones we hear on "Laughing Out Loud", and the ragtag backing vocals that propel "6th Avenue Heartache". The Wallflowers were able to distill their songs to the core, and focus the performances and production to cut out all the extraneous bits that sank their debut album. The difference between the two is much the same as listening to people like Jimi Hendrix covering Bob Dylan's songs, except in this case it was The Wallflowers getting there before others had to show them what the songs could be.

In spirit, this album is a sister to The Jayhawk's classic "Hollywood Town Hall", with that record being the folk sibling to The Wallflower's rock aesthetic. Both take the sound of classic Americana and bring it forward into the present day, updating the folk roots with melodies that borrow the immediacy of pop music. Every music snob who touts "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" as one of the greatest albums of their lifetime would not have that record to adore if not for The Wallflowers and The Jayhawks paving the way for that experiment.

Of course, nothing the record achieved would have been possible without "One Headlight". We can debate whether or not it is Jakob Dylan's greatest feat of songwriting, but there is no question it is the song that defines the band, even though it sounds like nothing else they ever wrote. The lone bass rumble leading into the droning organ and syrupy lead guitar is an atmosphere the band would never revisit, but it provided the perfect cold atmosphere for Jakob's obscure poetry. Perhaps it worked because it was the one song of the band's that could echo a hint of the dying grunge aesthetic, but that might be looking for a cause when only an effect exists.

The song was written about 'the death of ideas', which I'm not sure anyone listening to the song on the radio in those days picked up on. I will never claim to have been so astute at the time. What was enthralling about the song was the cryptic sound of the poetry, how the scene Jakob described felt like a noir mystery we needed to investigate and solve of our own accord. The answers might be present, but they were encoded in the language, waiting to be discovered by keen observers.

The great thing about songwriting is that the same song can mean different things to different people. For me, "One Headlight" was not a song about morality and the rot of society, it was a commentary on the death of self.

"I'm so alone, I feel like somebody else
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same"

Those are the lines that say everything to me. They express the existential horror of life, the fact that like the proverbial Ship Of Theseus, we are both the same as we ever were and yet completely new. To look at ourselves on any given day is to see the person we are, but also to not see a glimpse of the person we were. Taken that way, it's a complex bit of contemplation that speaks to our battles with our own psyches, but also to the ways the connections we hold with others fray and unravel. When everything is changing, yet staying the same, we don't know whether the love we hold for people (including ourselves) is alive or dead until we reach out and test whether it will crumble into dust.

"Bringing Down The Horse" was the sound of Jakob Dylan finding his voice, delivering on the promise that could almost be heard on the band's debut album. He would refine these skills even further on "Breach", making what I consider the band's true classic record. That one is filled to the brim with that kind of philosophical songwriting, and has been my source of inspiration for twenty-five years. It would not have been possible without this album first, which makes it a keystone worth celebrating.

And just because "One Headlight" overshadows everything else doesn't mean we should overlook what's hiding behind it, nor should we ignore just how damn good that song is. Few songs embody the decade of the 90s quite like that one, and there are a lot of days I long to go back then. I miss life feeling simpler, when a record could convince me life makes sense.