Barton Carroll

Trackimage Playbut Trackname Playbut Trackname
Certain Circles 02:41 Tools
Those Day Are Gone, And My Heart Is Breaking 04:03 Tools
Every Little Bit Hurts 03:46 Tools
Cat on a Beach 03:21 Tools
Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still 03:29 Tools
Small Thing 06:13 Tools
The Poor Boy Can't Dance 03:49 Tools
Brooklyn Girl, You're Going to be My Bride 03:08 Tools
Dark Place 01:44 Tools
The Straight Mile 00:00 Tools
Pretty Girl's Going To Ruin My Life (Again) 03:36 Tools
Superman 02:59 Tools
Brace Yourself 02:44 Tools
Shadowman 05:16 Tools
Your Name Must Be Mercy 02:33 Tools
Scorched Earth 04:41 Tools
It Had To Be A Train 02:39 Tools
Burning Red And Blue 05:37 Tools
Laveda 00:00 Tools
Laurie, Don't Go 02:40 Tools
Ramona 02:46 Tools
Rich As A Rolling Stone 04:39 Tools
Let's Get On With The Illusion 03:56 Tools
Look Up, Look Down, That Lonesome Road 02:09 Tools
The Beech Mountain Waltz 04:45 Tools
This Town Is Cold 02:41 Tools
What a Picture Is 04:26 Tools
Do You Want To Get Out Of Here? 05:14 Tools
Avery County, I'm Bound To You 03:58 Tools
Pauline 03:29 Tools
Monday Night 04:10 Tools
Mama's Making Something On the Loom 02:03 Tools
Together You And I 03:49 Tools
Past Tense 03:33 Tools
Something Good 03:28 Tools
The Saviors Of The World 02:38 Tools
Dark End Of The Street 04:16 Tools
Those Days are Gone & My Heart is Breaking 04:29 Tools
Vulture 03:25 Tools
The Way Back To Her 05:24 Tools
Day On The Waves 04:14 Tools
The Lag's Song 03:14 Tools
The Saviors of the World! 03:14 Tools
Barton Carroll - Certain Circles 03:14 Tools
Those Days Are Gone, and My Heart Is Breaking 03:14 Tools
The Savoirs of the World 02:39 Tools
These Days Are Gone and My Heart is Breaking 04:01 Tools
dark side of the street 04:01 Tools
Those Days Are Over And My Heart Is Breaking 04:00 Tools
Poor Boy Can't Dance 03:52 Tools
small thing (master) 03:52 Tools
Ladies' Man 03:52 Tools
Lookup, Look Down, That Lonesome Road 04:00 Tools
Those Days Are Gone 04:03 Tools
certain circles (master) 04:03 Tools
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"Let’s Get On with The Illusion," sings Barton Carroll on his fourth album, Together You and I on Skybucket Records, out January 19, 2009. It’s a song about love – but a shoulder-shrug type of love that resigns itself to "I guess this is good enough." A cynical narrative runs through the album for sure, but Carroll’s sardonic wit is coupled with lightly shuffling horns, making for happy sounding songs instead of a somber ones. His tone and sleight-of-hand songwriting skill gained him critical acclaim for his previous release, The Lost One from Pitchfork, Harp, American Songwriter and more. Is Carroll singing about his own experiences or smiling with a beer and watching others screw it up (and then taking home the girl)? "I tried to think like Cole Porter when I wrote that song. He was a master at metaphor," says Carroll. "His songs were sweet and dark, hopeless and happy, fresh and unashamedly cliché. Sounds a lot like love." A North Carolina native who now lives in Seattle, Carroll’s songs are structured in folk traditions he grew up with, but he trades in standard instrumentation for the west Coast horn sound of Craig Flory, and the production of Jazz bassist, Matt Weiner. The three bonded over a love of the Gerry Mulligan and Paul Desmond records of the 1960's, and the influence comes through. He also sings his first duets with Seattle singer Anna Lisa Notter. Carroll’s love for a previous era comes alive on the first track, "The Poor Boy Can't Dance." "I love how the band sounds on this one. They sound like a WWII era English Swing band: the kind of guys who are classically trained, but they have just been bitten by the Swing bug. Love that clarinet!," says Carroll. "Something Good" is the only song Carroll didn’t write, and it comes from an odd-sounding source for a Seattle based musician – The Sound of Music. "This has been a regular in my live set for the past few years. It was the first song that I decided to put on this album, and I think it sets the tone for the whole record. I think it lives beautifully between hope and sadness. And I thought the first line sounded a bit like a Barton Carroll song, ‘Perhaps I had a wicked childhood. Perhaps I had a miserable youth.’" The title song is akin to a desultory short story - a follow up to "Burning Red And Blue," a song of destructive love from the last record. But, with Notter's vocal and traces of hope in the characters, maybe their ending will be okay after all. "The characters are a few years older. The man has been imprisoned, and the woman is trying to adjust to life alone in a foreign land. This is the conversation they have through the prison glass." Barton Carroll grew up in Banner Elk, North Carolina. He has toured and recorded in Crooked Fingers, Azure Ray and Dolorean. "Together You And I" is his fourth solo album. He lives in Seattle. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.