Kate Jacobs - Helen Has a House

You know those songs where reason tells you that you shouldn't like them, for one reason or another, but you really, really like them nonetheless? This is one of those songs. There's something about Kate Jacobs' voice that I tend to find rather jarring at first, but the song is solid, from the introduction which plays like a set of scales to the soft lyrics which remind me of cool autumn days in Virginia. Despite strangely self-sufficient advice such as "don't bend your back bearing other people's crosses," the song sits on the fence between folk and bluegrass. It's a little too much piano to be either; it lacks the twang to be bluegrass but has a rural feel to it far beyond that of conventional folk.

It's heartfelt and honest in a very East Coast kind of way. Beyond that, it's a little hard to explain. It has the same heart as Paula Cole's Bethlehem or Caroline Herring's Carolina Moon, without being just a carbon copy of either. It stands on its own.