Album Review: Songs: Ohia- Journey On

Practically twenty years after releasing the 7” single for“Boys,” I have to wonder if Jason Molina knew how the song—and hell, even his throw away introduction to it (“Joe and I are going to teach you about the bitterness that is boys.”)—would still resonate so loudly.  In a world where we need Twitter hashtags for women’s rights (and in a world where men feel the need to respond to those hashtags) the song’s incredibly simple lyrics: “We have no rattlesnakes here/We have no devil in here/Cause we have boys…” say it all, in an eerie, near-prophetic way.

I’ve been putting off writing about the recently released Songs: Ohia singles collection, Journey On, for a lot of reasons. One of which is that it was, originally, a Record Store Day “exclusive” release. And after my series of unfortunate events at a record store, on Record Store Day, I was unable to secure a copy of it, and unable to bring myself to go anywhere else, brave more crowds, and look for it. It was, for a while anyway, available to purchase from Molina’s label Secretly Canadian, for quite a hefty price. It has, since then, been removed from their web store.

But the main reason that I’ve been dragging my feet on this is because of how difficult it can be for me to write about Jason Molina. I had been long aware of him as an artist, as well as his personal struggles, but I had discovered his music on my own and I had immersed myself in a bulk of his canon, using it to soundtrack my days through a very difficult period of time, roughly six months prior to his death in 2013.

If anything, Journey On, serves as a retrospective that shows growth through time. Beginning with the ramshackle, sloppy “Boys,” dating back all the way to 1995, up through the end of Songs: Ohia as a project, before Molina re-christened the band The Magnolia Electric Company in 2003. Sequenced in chronological order, you can hear Molina becoming a better musician, and more importantly, a more intense and gifted songwriter, as you make your way through the material.

The two standouts arrive, back to back, within the final portion of Journey On—a stunning alternate version of “Lioness,” and “The Gray Tower.” Originally found on the LP of the same name, released in 2000, “Lioness” is the centerpiece in a very raw, uneasy, and hard hitting set of songs. Molina slowly moved out of the unhinged indie rock style, shifting away from it completely, and favoring a country and western twang, three years later on Didn’t It Rain? and The Magnolia Electric Company.

By comparison, this alternate version of “Lioness” is barely recognizable. Stripping away even the sparse and basic instrumentation on the LP version, here, it’s just Molina, a guitar, a piano, and the occasional, chilling back up vocals from Jennie Benford. It’s within this incredibly intimate and fragile setting that you can really hear how heartbreakingly romantic and yet utterly devastating this song is—

…Whether you save you me
whether you savage me
want my last look to be the moon in your eyes
want my heart to break if it must break in your jaws
want you to lick my blood off your paws…

Following this is “The Gray Tower,” the A-Side to a 7” single that was released shortly before Didn’t It Rain?. It’s one of Molina’s countless songs to reference birds (here, he mentions talons.) And it’s one of many songs that deal with a “darkness on the edge of town” as it were—an inevitable “it” that nobody can escape.

In the Pitchfork review of Journey On, it mentions that these songs are all best listened to in their intended, 7” vinyl single format, and that the accompanying CD of all of the tracks runs a little long and “dulls some of the most intense moments.” I would disagree strongly with that—specifically when my jaw dropped during “Lioness.”

Listening to this, sequentially, on a CD, or on a computer, certainly does lack the cohesive sound that a Songs: Ohia album would have, but I thought it was fascinating to hear the continued growth and maturation with each song that played—tracking Molina from his unstable, sloppy beginnings (like the early singles “Trans Am,” and “Freedom Pt. 2”) to the very deliberate, somber final track “United, or Lost Alone,” show his ability to focus his songwriting and playing as he grew into his role as singer and musician.

Certainly Journey On is intended for the die hard Molina completest. A first time listener, or a fair weather fan should start with the double shot of Didn’t it Rain? and The Magnolia Electric Company, then work their way either backwards through his earlier output, or forward till the abrupt end of his career. And as much as I hate to say this comes off as a bit of a cash grab on the part of his label Secretly Canadian, the limited availability and high price tag make it appear that way.

Fascinating, fragile, and compelling, while being a tad uneven at times due to the nature of 18 tracks spanning a decade, tossed together on a CD, Journey On is more than a snapshot of a great songwriter—it’s a flip book of a prolific artist that only slowed down after his lifestyle caught up to him.

Journey On is out of print, but is available for a small fortune on Discogs.