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Better Days are Coming


From the start, Matt Hudgins conceived his new solo album, Better Days Are Coming, as a response to “living in shitty times and wanting things to be better.” The project—a simple, 10-song acoustic record drenched in tape hiss—was conceived in August and completed within two months, financed by a successful online fundraising campaign. “Basically, I’m just very thankful and humbled by it all,” he says.

Hudgins will celebrate the album’s release with a pair of election-season shows at Go Bar on Monday, Nov. 5 and at Caledonia Lounge on Friday, Nov. 9. Staunchly, if subtly, political and purposefully austere, Better Days Are Coming offers both a lamentation and a hard-earned glimmer of hope. Here’s a track-by-track guide, anchored by a selection of Hudgins’ thoughts as recently conveyed to Flagpole. [Gabe Vodicka]

1. “Climb the Walls”

“Could I leave you with a kindness/ And ease your worried mind that all is fine”

Modern politics, to me, is just another phenomenon in this category of Things That Make Me Feel Hopeless… The [album] is meant to be a hopeful response to all the negativity, and I wanted it to be out before the election so that maybe for a few people, at least, it can be part of the soundtrack to the slow shift back to normal—however things go on Nov. 6.

2. “Fucking with My Head”

“Fans of death and sickness/ This is your year”

Better Days Are Coming isn’t really a political album, but it is a response to a lot of mostly unrelated events which I have seen drive myself and some of my loved ones to a sense of hopelessness and despair. I’m talking specifically about betrayal by close family, the death of someone far too young, suicide, divorce, disease and a lack of options due to economic depression.

3. “Better Days Are Coming”

“I may not live to see it/ And I hope I really still believe it/ Better days are coming/ For you and for me”

I do believe that better days are coming, because I have no choice but to believe that.

4. “Gun Control”

“Loneliness is my one constant friend/ A friend droppin’ by unannounced again”

I think the natural state of the country artist is to relate to down-and-out working people. Hell, when country music was a smaller part of the industry, and every up-and-comer had to slog their way through shitty dive bars and work for tips, most country musicians were working people.

5. “Wilkes County Jail”

“Four walls closin’ in on me”

The feeling of being trapped in a collapsing building.

6. “Dying Young”

“The only things I done right was run around in sin/ Always thinkin’ death was just around the bend”

These days, country music is the only one that works on the old model: throw a bunch of money at a few new artists, send them on expensive tours and sell a million CDs at Walmart. Why bother finding the guys working the small dives, when you can find some fresh-faced kid from an affluent suburb who has a good voice and a gym membership, wears his jeans well and just won some regional karaoke competition on TV?

7. “The Road to La Palma”

“The road to La Palma is constant and long”

A lot of the young country guys now come straight from never missing a meal to never paying for a meal, and you can hear it in their songs. They go from the top 10 percent to the top 5 percent, and struggle isn’t something they’re personally familiar with. So much of their output sounds forced, and false.

8. “PTSD”

“Peace is just another word that means nothing to me/ A shell of some old memory”

I would like to hold a funeral for the use of the terms “socialist” and “class warfare” as political weapons. The right lobs these at anyone with progressive ideas, which is insulting to historical socialists and [actual] instances of class warfare. Socialists shut down Europe’s highways to strike for better working conditions; they don’t meekly ask Congress for slightly better prescription drug coverage.

9. “Siren”

“I don’t pray to no God for mercy/ On my dirty old soul”

My religious faith is about as difficult for me to categorize as my politics, and from what I have read of religious texts, I don’t think they are usually as clear on what happens after we’re gone as most folks would have you believe.

10. “Lullabye”

“Think about your mother/ And the blame that she would feel/ Think of how it’s better/ To have wounds that might yet heal”

All we have to look forward to for sure is what happens in this life, and to trust that whatever comes after is going to be OK, [and] that for the most part, the natural phases of life aren’t designed to be completely terrible. Laughter and joy are things I hope will happen more, and sadness, anger and depression are things I’d like to see a lot less of. So, yeah, I do hope and expect that better days are coming. Eventually.

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