Every Moment Has A Song

Rosanne Cash: “Beautiful Pain” (2003)

A typical Rosanne Cash album can be counted on to contain a mix of her insightful, personal originals and well-chosen material from other writers that sounds as though she could have written it.

“Beautiful Pain”, penned by Craig Northey and featuring backing vocals from Sheryl Crow, leads off her excellent Rules of Travel album and perfectly sets the tone for her first release in roughly seven years, which is a typically soul-baring rumination on the nature of long-term committed love.

Rosanne’s husband John Leventhal produced the album with meticulous sonic detail. Given that he’s known to be a huge Beatles fan, I can’t help wondering if that accounts for the drum sounds in the instrumental break, which seem to mimic the sound Ringo got by slackening his drum heads for a deeper “thump”.