Come Home to Mama

Martha Wainwright’s professional and personal growing up

Martha Wainwright has already established herself as an open and direct performer who prefers to sing and speak to the public about what truly concerns her. Listeners are won not only by the honesty in her songs, but the delivery itself where there is no room for grimacing, holding back or euphemizing. On her fifth album, Martha gets down to topics she shied away from before and thus advances herself to a totally new level of professional evolvement and mentality. Leaving behind teenager’s complaints and moaning, Wainwright focuses on problems which are well known and crucial for more mature listeners. And it is not difficult to figure out the reasons for this transition. Not so long ago did Martha get married, have a baby and lose her mother, a popular artist, Kate McGarrigle. There is no denying the new offer Come Home To Mama is a record where almost everything is written by the singer herself.

Loss of mother is a dominant topic on the album

In Wainwright’s discography there has not yet been so emotionally diverse work. Marriage life alone is displayed from so several points of view. The range of feelings varies from pure delight (Can You Believe It) to disappointment (Some People). Everything Wrong unites in itself fear and guilt that the singer lets through herself as she tries to explain to her baby daughter that this world is not always a place to dwell so easily. Still, she put most of her soul in those songs which are somehow connected with the loss of her mother. Of course, the highlight is the single Proserpina, a cover to a song written by Kate McGarrigle herself. Mystique keys create an amazing atmosphere for this mythological plot whose new interpretation sounds not a bit less interesting than the original. All Your Clothes spears you with its sincerity as it describes how difficult it is for a daughter to put up with just the thought that her mother is no longer around. Four Black Sheep, and Leave Behind are voiced elaborations on the power death holds over the living. In these gloomy songs Martha does not speak directly to Kate, but their interaction is implied and this makes a mighty cinematic effect of afterword.

This is what they expected from Martha Wainwright

Come Home To Mama is Martha Wainwright’s first work where lyrics live up to the standards of her rich and deep voice. Just like her brother Rufus Wainwright, the singer is capable of transfiguring from one image into another by changing her singing only, each time offering the audience something new. And the music wrapping here is really secondary. Probably because you get to recall the music after actually listening to this album and come to a conclusion it has never undermined the vocals, you know you can call the instrumental work just fine. The rock-music accompaniment with light electronic arrangements is a non-distracting background to emphasize the main participant’s performance. The songs of Come Home To Mama, according to the first impression, seem to have been molded from one pattern. Three or four minutes each, they slightly differ in terms of music, but all of them are fragments of a bright panorama. This album is not an easy listening, nor does it offer a whole lot of life-assuring statements, but this work is exactly that kind of work you must have expected from Martha Wainwright. Finally, her song-writing and performing talent reveals itself in all its splendor.