Hear Allison Moorer Embrace Change on New Album ‘Down to Believing’
Change, in its myriad forms, is at the center of Allison Moorer’s extraordinary new album, Down to Believing. A subject she has become intimately familiar with, especially since the release of her previous LP, Crows, in 2010, Moorer addresses life-altering circumstances with a range of emotional responses on the 13-song set, tempering deeply personal expressions of guilt, confusion and melancholy with jarring moments of rage, bitterness and, ultimately, grace.
Now divorced from fellow musician Steve Earle, who recently released his own album, the bluesy Terraplane, Moorer is chiefly focused on raising their son, John Henry, who turns five early next month and was diagnosed with autism three years ago. Lyrically, those subjects are dealt with throughout the new LP in startlingly candid fashion, but Moorer and her co-writers have also crafted tremendous melodies and rich, soulful grooves. While it’s still early in the year, Down to Believing could stand as one of the finest albums of 2015. Her eighth studio release since 1998’s Alabama Song, Down to Believing will be released this week on eOne Nashville. (Stream the album in its entirety below.)
Moorer spoke with Rolling Stone Country about her new album, inspired by what she simply says is a life spent “keeping all the balls in the air.”
With this new album being such a personal account of the things that have affected your life over the past few years, how did you prepare to open up and talk about it all?
I was really scared about it, to tell you the truth. It was one of the reasons I wasn’t sure for a while if I was going to make another record, or if I wanted to make another record, because the material was going to be really sensitive and really personal. Just being very familiar with the process and having some things in my life already that were painful to talk about, I didn’t know if I was ready to rip the scab off every day. So I had to go through a process of thinking about that and trying to figure out if I was ready to do that.
Especially in terms of talking about your son’s autism?
And thinking of it as a positive thing, ultimately, if there’s anything I can do to bring awareness to it. But there’s a fine line there. I don’t want to put too much out there about my son’s life. It’s not my life. I’m trying to shepherd him through the world, but it’s his life. In the age of Google, nothing ever goes away. I want to be really careful about revealing specific details about him. But what I do want to say is that it has affected my life very much. It’s something that is a growing problem that needs more attention paid to it and if there is anything I can do to stand up and raise my hand and say, “Hey, this is affecting my life and anyone out there who’s feeling that, I feel it too.” That’s why I wrote “Mama Let the Wolf In.”
It was my own experience, but maybe seven or eight years ago I wouldn’t have put something like that out, because it’s so personal and it’s so angry. I think it’s OK to be angry. It’s OK to say I understand intellectually that this had nothing to do with me, but in my darkest dark at 3 a.m., when I wake up in a panic, I have my moments of wondering what I did wrong. I know I’m not alone in that. I know other parents of children who have special needs, I know other parents who have children who have autism. There’s a helplessness there that’s just heartbreaking. If anything, I want to just say I feel it and maybe if you sing along to the song for three minutes you might feel better.