If there’s one thing that Sturgill Simpson has never quite learned how to do, it’s settle down. Some of this can be attributed to his navy days, the experiences of which manifested into 2016’s Grammy-nominated A Sailor’s Guide To Earth. Since he set sail on those sonic seas eight years ago, it feels like a part of him has never fully returned. Between Instagram accounts where he’s a modern-day milk-carton kid and studio efforts that felt more like side quests than a pursuit of the main narrative, it’s been hard to keep track of who, where, or even what Sturgill Simpson really is. He stops off at a port and takes a quick look around before his sea legs have him frantically jumping back in the ship, off to the next adventure.
It’s too early to say whether Passage Du Desir marks a permanent residence back home, but at the very least, it’s a welcome visit. The Kentucky native seems eager to delve back into his roots, albeit with a little bit of perspective gained from his travels. After a stint abroad in France and cutting this newest effort at the famed Abbey Road Records, there’s still plenty for him to bring to show-and-tell.
The album’s opener, “Swamp of Sadness,” immediately gives whispers of his Parisian excursion. Suddenly, a delicate string section beckons us toward that ominous yet alluring door frame labeled “Passage of Desire” on the record’s front cover. As easily as this track and the rest of the LP could’ve fallen into a shallow tale of a life changed thanks to a semester spent abroad, Simpson pines after far more than cheap sights and Instagram highlights during his morning stroll.
In prose, his walk retreads old ground. Simpson and Passage are keen to pick through the wreckage of a blast scattering past emotions across the street. “If The Sun Never Rises Again” makes sense of love isolated in its occurrence and delivery. “Why can’t the dream go on forever? Why can’t the night never end?” He sings under the guidance of a sleazy New Orleans club backing arrangement. There’s a poignance to lyrics with such youthful enthusiasm, muttered seemingly through stifled sobs and swallowed by a composition implying that the world moves on mercilessly even if he hasn’t.
A sizable portion of Passage demonstrates that even with an acute sense of soul being harbored, there’s a lot of Simpson that Johnny Blue Skies wishes the world would leave behind. Aside from being a label workaround, the new name is undoubtedly a means of returning to form. Conceptuality and wheels reinvented now traded in for familiar dusty guitars, the wails of which gave the rise to a Simpson so many fell in love with. The boat he’s on now seems to have a little more wiggle room, free of the shackles of expectation that his previous moniker brought along with it. Where Sturgill Simpson demanded expectations, Johnny Blue Skies now invites curiosity.
Free from that pressure, we see a weight lifted off his shoulders almost immediately. “Scooter Blues” takes that sullen trod and quickens its pace as his travels teeter on escapism, and his name becomes less and less defined. Those previously-mentioned side-quests melt into a quasi-yacht rock anthem that’s no doubt been simmering on the stove for the better part of a decade. Softer, flighty vocals that croon about kickboxing in Thailand and swapping the big ole’ pot of coffee for a glass of chocolate milk speak of a man who’s regained a sense of wonder in the wake of what felt like an identity lost.
Shedding responsibility, or questioning its nature altogether, ultimately feels like the great debate Passage is trying to settle. Is Sturgill Simpson, or the perception of him, truly who he is? Is it what he’s become? Is there even a difference between any of those? All questions Sturgill and Johnny seem to be treading through, though no solution of any comfort is found when they reach the shore.
On “Who I Am,” the record’s crux and most derivative track of Metamodern Sounds In Country Music, both iterations of the same man seem to put it as plainly as they can. He wonders if he’s too far along the journey for a detour, too far removed from a blank slate to rewrite the story. “They don’t ask you what your name is when you get up to heaven,” he cries, “and thank God, I couldn’t tell her if I had to who I am.”
What’s delivered in place of a new identity is arguably just comfort found in his old one. This LP feels like Simpson sifting through the sands previously trod on, hoping that the grains and clumps picked out will make the path more comfortable under his bare feet. As imitative as it might appear at first glance of early works like Metamodern or A Sailor’s Guide, the steps taken in those old shoes feel far more progressive than regressive. The boards of those boats are creakier, their hulls more dimly lit, but their familiarity is inviting despite the dinginess. Drawn-out blues licks and a fettered string section usher a return-to-form for a man who missed himself as much as we did.
In a recent interview with GQ, Simpson was asked who Johnny Blue Skies is, to which his reply was brief yet broad: “He’s anybody you want him to be, man,” Simpson said. While that leaves much to be interpreted, it also effectively wipes away the preconceived notions he’s so hellbent on running from. The caveat is that while his tendencies may remain nomadic, his temperament is reserved and at peace with the man he’s become. Rid of identity, yet simultaneously so sure of himself. His body may not be settled down, but his heart seems to know how better than most.
9.2
