Christine Kane obviously loves to sing, and this love comes across on Rain & Mud & Wild & Green, a CD combining a light musical touch with some very deep lyrics.

As her biography notes state, Kane " grew up taking ballet lessons and using her imagination to jump beyond the land of chain link fences and strip malls." She may have leaped away from them but she did not forget them. They are used to great effect in these songs, which are a joy to hear. Even the titles are evocative. "She Don't Like Roses" and "The Way You Say Goodbye" attracted my attention immediately.

"The Way Clouds Do" opens the CD with a tale of a bus ride. With a beautiful accompaniment, Kane observes life and tells us of passengers reading novels and using cell phones, and the drivers passing by. Who has ever travelled by bus without wondering about all those people and places you pass without wondering about their lives? Kane puts the thoughts into song.

"Everything Green" is a beautiful song about ecology. Just listening to these lyrics brings back a time now past for so many. We can listen to the song as a lament for the so-called progress of development or even for lost youth as you dream of how in youth you would run in mud and dance in rain.

As with all the best writing, Kane can draw us from the humorous description to the poignant reality in a single song such as "No Such Thing as Girls Like That." This is a fascinating song that bashes the myths of sexually explicit MTV dances (she only did such a dance when bees got in her pants) and the potential reality of Barbie. Her statistics on Barbie are fun and her take on the lingerie catalogue model in a kitchen is hilarious.

"All the Relatives" will ring bells with anyone who knows a person who is in any way different. This is what songs are about.

It takes a good writer and performer to make a song based on waiting in line. "Or Just Heading Home" does just this with verses devoted to various people in the queue, interspersed with love and loss. "One Once More" is a hard phrase to speak but Kane constructs a lovely song from it -- not that she uses the phrase in the lyrics. It is a slow, thought-provoking piece that bears a number of listens.

This is a well-produced and packaged CD of thoughtful songs that are a joy to hear.

- Rambles
written by Nicky Rossiter
published 15 March 2003

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