Los Lobos - The Town and the City/Tin Can Trust

I was going to write this as my take on the new Los Lobos release Tin Can Trust. But as I listened to it I realized it is a lot like their previous CD of original material, 2006’s The Town and the City. The lyrical themes in several of the songs are similar. Both discs contain songs about people facing different kinds of adversity. The production on both discs sounds the same. If I didn’t know any better I would think all of these songs were recorded during the same sessions and in the same studio instead of four years apart in different studios. This is a testament to Los Lobos’ quality and consistency.

There are songs of escape. TCT’s opening track Burn it Down chugs along with just acoustic guitar, upright bass, and drums, with a hint of mandolin. Susan Tedeschi provides background harmony on the chorus. The electric guitar makes its first appearance at the 2:36 mark with a fairly laid back solo, and then it becomes a full-blown wah-wah-drenched psychedelic freakout at 4:14 that lasts until the song ends. I don’t know what the singer is trying to get away from, but he wants to get away from it in the worst way and not go back by “burning it down.” TCT’s All My Bridges Burning expresses that same sentiment of running away from something. The Road to Gila Bend from TTATC is the tale of a breakneck run across the border from Mexico.

There are songs about “home.” Between the two discs there is a yin-and-yang thing about “home.” On Main Street from TCT depicts a guy going on a stroll through his neighborhood, hanging out with his friends male and female alike, watching the women and their kids, and not worrying about a thing. He’s taking pleasure in the simple things in life. These are the things that make the singer’s blues go away. The Town [East Los Angeles, the home of Los Lobos], one of two title tracks from TTATC, depicts low-riders, graffiti on walls, shots ringing out in the night, and mothers telling their kids not to stray too far from home in “the town where I come from.” It’s a place where the singer’s “heart will be found,” where he’ll rest and go there whenever he dreams. Two Dogs and a Bone, another of TTATC’s reminders of “home,” is a mom’s advice to two brothers not to fight. But it’s all “home,” with all of the good and the not-so-good that go with it. The City [Los Angeles] is the place with the neon lights, where lovers kiss in doorways, people yell at you from their second floor windows. It’s a place where the people dance real slow, where you can go bar hopping from Paramount and Cudahy, you can go get high and shoot out those neon lights. It’s a place to go to get away from The Town, if only for a little while.

There are songs about love. TCT’s The Lady Of The Rose and Jupiter Or The Moon and TTATC’s Little Things and If You Were Only Here Tonight have that topic covered. While listening to Little Things, close your eyes and you’ll hear Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale. You hear the singer being wistful about being so driven to be a success in life that he doesn’t see the “little things” in life, like the love of a woman, like his own heartbreak. Jupiter Or The Moon sounds almost like a long-lost Traffic classic. This one is the classic tale of a man saying he would do anything for his lady [if he could], but she’s not anywhere to be seen and he misses her terribly. There’s optimism and hope in TTATC’s The Valley. It's got the backwards guitars like what you'd hear from The Beatles I'm Only Sleeping, that hypnotic sound that sounds like the singer is waking from a dream. TTATC’s Hold On is a hardworking guy, holding on to every breath while he’s “killing himself to survive,” and if he makes it to sunrise, he’ll do it all over again. On TCT’s title track, the singer tells his lady that he’s broke, but there is one thing he can bring her that doesn’t cost anything – love. Most of these songs from both of these albums fit into the same narrative about life in East L.A.

Of the songs that don’t fit the narrative, here’s a great cover of the Grateful Dead’s West L.A. Fadeaway on TCT. Where the Dead’s original is kind of lazy and laid back, Los Lobos add muscle with David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas swapping guitar solos. I like the separation here – you can hear Rosas’ Les Paul in your right ear and Hidalgo’s Stratocaster in your left ear. The tones of the two guitars are very distinctive. The TCT instrumental Do the Murray is a chance for both David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas to show off a little. TCT’s final track 27 Spanishes is Los Lobos’ take on the Spanish Conquista. It reminds me of Neil Young’s Cortez the Killer, only more subdued.

If there’s a formula to Los Lobos’ music, it’s this – you can count on two songs in Spanish from Cesar Rosas. On Tin Can Trust there’s the cumbia Yo Canto and the norteño Mujer Ingrata. On The Town and the City there’s Chuco’s Cumbia and No Puedo Más. David Hidalgo throws in Luna for good measure on The Town and the City.

I have every Los Lobos album since By the Light of the Moon, which came out in 1987 [I think]. These guys continue to amaze me with every release, even when they put out Los Lobos Goes Disney last year. These guys are incapable of making a bad album. Listening to The Town and the City and Tin Can Trust back-to-back is like watching a movie about the complicated experience of simply living. It is a somewhat dark and murky tale, but you get to hear of the values that the guys in Los Lobos cherish, and that’s not a bad thing. Do yourself a favor and pick up these two discs. You will not be disappointed.


Little Things [from The Town and the City]