Video: "Jump for Joy" - Red Yarn (World Premiere!)

There is… a lot going on in the world right now — death, destruction, anger, systemic injustice made manifest. And so I completely understand someone’s surface-level reaction to the idea of posting a video for a song titled “Jump for Joy” at this point.

Red Yarn (aka Portland, Oregon’s Andy Furgeson) gets it, too. He’s releasing his sixth album, Backyard Bop, on August 7th, and when he wrote the leadoff single “Jump for Joy” in January 2020, the world (at least in the United States) looked a lot different than it does as summer officially kicks off. At the time, Furgeson says, “I was thinking about the power of activism and my responsibility to spread joy from my position of privilege… I had no idea what the world would look like just six months later. Now, in this moment of pandemic and civil unrest, I'm more aware than ever that I have a duty as a privileged white male artist to use my small but mighty platform for good.”

So, yes, on the one hand this video is a silly little thing, featuring Furgeson’s trademark puppets as the crew for the video. (Furgeson assures me that it was filmed in a socially-distanced manner by Lake Karavias, also known round these parts as the ringleader of the Big World Audio Theater.) But with a chorus featuring the lyrics “Stand right up, raise your voice, get up with me, and jump for joy!,” the rockabilly song has a social activist heart that puts it in good company with recent releases from artists like the Okee Dokee Brothers, Alastair Moock, and Alphabet Rockers (not to mention legends like Ella Jenkins, Pete Seeger, and Raffi). And most activists will tell you that there’s got to be a bit of joy alongside the hard work of social change.

Anyway, I’m happy to present the world-premiere of the video. You can listen to “Jump for Joy” wherever your family streams music here, or also via the player following the video below.

Red Yarn - “Jump for Joy” [YouTube]

Red Yarn · Jump For Joy

Video: "Little Baby Born Today" - Red Yarn

It was another stellar year for Andy Furgeson, AKA Red Yarn. Born in the Deep Woods was one of my favorite albums from 2017, and it wrapped up the "Deep Woods Trilogy" with another set of modern takes on old folk tunes, which took as its inspiration in part the subject of parenthood.

Appropriately so, because Furgeson and his wife Jessie Eller-Isaacs got to enjoy the first year of their second child, a daughter. And it's that daughter, who celebrates her first birthday this month, who stars in a new video for a song off Born in the Deep Woods titled "Little Baby Born Today." She was a lot younger at the time Furgeson, Eller-Isaacs, and director Laki Karavias shot the video, but given the impending birthday, now felt like a good time to release it, says Furgeson.

As with the album itself, the video is about parenthood as much as it is childhood, so it may be just as interesting to the parents as the kids, but pretty shots of nature and appearances of hand-crafted puppets should be enough to keep the kids tuned in.

Incidentally, Furgeson notes that the entire trilogy has been reprinted with new, unified packaging (available here), and that he's already hard at work in the studio for the next album, tentatively titled Red Yarn's Old Barn.

But until then, you'll have to make do with the video, which I'm happy to world-premiere today.

Red Yarn - "Little Baby Born Today" [YouTube]

Review: Born in the Deep Woods - Red Yarn

Some artists take tentative steps into kids music, but Andy Furgeson seemed to know exactly what he was doing from the get-go. Playing as Red Yarn, the Austin-bred, Portland-based musician and puppeteer brought the fervor of a revival to his first kids' album, 2013's The Deep Woods, and then doubled-down on that feeling with his 2015 follow-up, the appropriately titled Deep Woods Revival. Both albums brought energy and emotion to old folk songs to make those old songs sound urgent and vital.

After a 2016 detour into some stripped-down arrangements on Wake Up and Sing, Furgeson is back with the final entry in his "Deep Woods Trilogy," Born in the Deep Woods. If the first two Deep Woods albums sound like they were recorded in a church somewhere, this new album has a much more Southern-fried rock sound. Not quite in a bar, perhaps, but not exactly church pew, either. For everyone who ever thought what Red Yarn needed was more cowbell, Born in the Deep Woods is the album for you.

The title track, a Furgeson original, has a driving sound that might fit in more with the earlier albums, but "Old Mother Goose" definitely has that Southern "classic rock" sound even as it weaves together some traditional nursery rhymes like "Hey Diddle Diddle" and "All Around the Mulberry Bush." There are more completely original songs on this new album -- four or five depending on how you're counting -- than on previous works, but I think it's a testament to Furgeson's songwriting skills and his production work alongside co-producer Adam Selzer that it can hard be hard to tell his takes on songs sung for generations apart from the ones written for and inspired by Furgeson's two kids.

Furgeson knows how to have fun with a song -- check out the video for "Mockingbird," in which Furgeson plots the detailed musical background of the song with a detail rivaling the search for the Zodiac Killer -- but he seems particularly focus on the meaning of parenthood. Songs like "Little Baby Born Today," "Old Black Dog," and "Deep Woods Revisited" address life -- both birth and death -- in the tone of voice of a parent. The epic "Born Again" does, too, filled with slide guitar instrumental breaks and lines like "When we reach our destination / Across the river, across the nation / We find we're right back where we came from." Could the Allman Brothers record that song and have it sound a little bit like the Red Yarn track? Most definitely.

Born in the Deep Woods is not a kids music album, but only to those who haven't spent a lot of time thinking about kids music. There's an alphabet song on here that even though I'd listened to the album a half-dozen times I didn't realize it until I looked at the lyrics. (Which you should totally do if you decide to get a copy of the lovely physical copy.) It is an intricate album, and while it's appealing musically and not cryptic in any way, for some listeners, the simpler Wake Up and Sing may be the better entry point to the Red Yarn discography. You could put this album on for the 10-minute drive home from school, but it fits more a 45-minute Lego construction session.

I, for one, am looking forward to where Furgeson moves on from Born in the Deep Woods. The Deep Woods have been a rich source of inspiration for the Red Yarn albums, but I also think that his songwriting on this album in particular indicates he can look beyond the folk music tradition that's informed so much of his work. Not that he'd ever abandon that music -- and I don't want him to -- but I'm more interested at this point in seeing where he goes next than in further expansion of the Deep Woods mythology. I hope he comes back to the Deep Woods in time, but I'd like to see what he discovers when he ventures out further to explore. Highly recommended.

Note: I was given a copy of the album for possible review.

Video: "Potato Leek Soup" - Django Jones

It's been awhile since Django Jones released their 2014 album D Is for Django, but not too long ago they released a video for one of my favorite songs on the album, "Potato Leek Soup," a brief but earnest power ballad promoting, well, potato leek soup. (Think of it as the savory version of The Verve Pipe's "Cereal", I guess.)

Anyway, the video features real potato heads and, even better, leek puppets. I'm serious, folks, it's worth 90 seconds of your time to see leek puppets sing. (Also, stick around for the closing credits.)

Django Jones - "Potato Leek Soup" [YouTube]

Video: "Two Trees, Old Friends" - Molly Ledford & Billy Kelly

This video for "Two Trees, Old Friends," the sweet and wistful song from Molly Ledford & Billy Kelly's incredible album Trees is... well, I hesitate to describe it too much, because you and your kids will only get one chance to see it for the first time, and I firmly believe in the power of wonder and awe.

And I think that's what you might feel when you see this for the first time.

(Tip of the hat to Fort Psych, the Atlanta-based company who put together the video, and Lyon Forrest Hill, who directed and designed it.)

Molly Ledford & Billy Kelly - "Two Trees, Old Friends" [Vimeo]

Video: "I Had a Rooster" - Red Yarn (World Premiere!)

Once you've woken up to a "Beautiful Day," what are you gonna do? Eat, of course! And so Red Yarn in "I Had a Rooster" visits all the animals on his farm, feeds them the greenberry tree, and all the animals are vocally responsive. (You know, "meow meow... neigh neigh...")

I really like the uptempo Red Yarn take on the traditional barnyard song from his Wake Up & Sing album, and his video once again features many puppet-y friends. My favorite this time is the horse jammin' out on the drums. Enjoy this video (directed by Jeff Speetjens and featuring a bunch of puppeteers) for "I Had a Rooster," world-premiered here!

Red Yarn - "I Had a Rooster" [YouTube]