UMC.org Music Review
Martina McBride: Waking Up Laughing
Label: Sony/BMG
Sound/Style: Pop-influenced contemporary country
By Steve Morley
UMC.org—Martina McBride is a perky powerhouse whose full-throated country hits alternate between matters of the heart and headier social issues like poverty and domestic abuse. The thematic mixture on Waking Up Laughing is similar, with one difference, McBride combines those two worlds, injecting big doses of light into several uplifting songs aimed at the heart of imperfect modern life. “House of a Thousand Dreams” peers through cracked windows upon a financially challenged family that thrives in love despite disadvantages. The fist-clenching anthem “Anyway,” which marks the singer’s debut as a writer, nimbly connects the notions of dreaming and praying while maintaining a realistic take on belief in a mysterious Creator: “And you know it might not ever come your way/ Dream it anyway/ God is great, but sometimes life ain't good/ When I pray it doesn't always turn out like I think it should/ But I do it anyway.”
“For These Times” scans the TV and the front page but looks beyond the troubled scenes therein and once again exhorts prayer, on behalf of the suffering as well as for the singer herself, to offer “words of kindness” and “hands ready to hold up the light.” She takes on a controversial position midway through the song, supporting the ongoing and costly struggle for liberty outside of U.S. borders: "And freedom is a word/ Some cry out and some whisper/ And some are just too quick to give away/ Blessed be the one who stands by the one on the battle line/ For these times in which we live.”
Serving as her own producer, a rare accomplishment for a female country artist, McBride presides over a pristine and tuneful country-pop affair that hits all the typical bases. Lyrically, however, she presents a more faith-centered album than Nashville usually churns out. Even “How I Feel,” a romantic rocker co-written by the vocalist, is crafted to include symbols of spiritual meaning as they relate to a love object that could as easily be supernatural as human: “An old church door that stays wide open/ A perfect heart that's never been broken/ That's how I feel when I'm with you.”
While McBride’s decidedly mainstream image and her more straightforward secular material are comparatively tasteful, the disc wouldn’t quite wash with Christian radio, as its lyrics reference no singular theological answer to sin and pain. Still, McBride pours out positive, grace-oriented messages that speak to the fallen in a way that an exclusively Christian artist would find prohibitive within the constraints of their genre. “Love Land” finds God’s hand inside the lives of a young couple that started out doing everything wrong, while the chipper, acoustic-driven “Beautiful Again” inspiringly presses past domestic failure, sexual abuse and pregnancy out of wedlock to freely receive tomorrow’s new mercies. In the song’s bridge, McBride’s character realistically pauses to question her optimism before ultimately emerging triumphant: “She wonders if she is wrong to believe in a better world/ Then she sees her little girl/ And she knows she is right/ ‘Cause when it rains, the past gets washed away.”
If the songs on Waking Up Laughing aren’t true stories, they’re nonetheless fashioned out of everyday fabric made more attractive by the presence of promise.
Audio Clips
"If I Had Your Name"
"Cry Cry ('Till the Sun Shines)"
"Tryin' to Find a Reason"
"For These Times"
| 
Podcast
Movie Review RSS Feed