Edie Brickell - Picture Perfect Morning - Music & Performance - CD

With the arrival of PICTURE PERFECT MORNING, songwriter Edie Brickell offers some tangible hints as to what life might be like after the New Bohemians. Not surprisingly, given the presence of engineer-producer Roy Halee and producer-husband Paul Simon, the sound is an appealing mix of R&B and folkie sources, animated by Brickell's sing-songy delivery, beatnik inflections and her lovingly detailed, stream of consciousness narratives.

PICTURE PERFECT MORNING chronicles the emotional closures and false starts that distinguish relationships in flux. On "Tomorrow Comes" Brickell envisions the passing of time and the fading of passion over a bumptious New Orleans groove, while her ambivalence finally gets the best of her on "Green," as in green with envy at the happiness of others (or merely nostalgic for a more bucolic rural existence). The folkish "When The Lights Go Down" and the soul-tinted "Good Times" (featuring a vocal break by Barry White) betray an elemental fear of being alone, even as the sly "In The Bath" chronicles her need to get away from everything--her work, her friends...even herself.