In listening to Allison Moorer’s Down to Believing, a Wim Wenders quote comes to mind: “My advice is, don’t spend your money on therapy. Spend it in a record store.” Here, Moorer puts her own spin on that. Whether or not she spent any time in therapy to get through the dissolution of her marriage to Steve Earle, she certainly spend a lot of it writing songs about it. From top to bottom, the cycle traces her internal machinations (and throws in a cover of “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” just for good measure).
Quite a bit of the set, including the opening track, is grounded in down and dirty roots rock so that Moorer can make the point perfectly clear that “It ain’t ever gonna be like it used to be.” As a thesis statement or a song hook, the message of resolve is undeniable: Things have changed. As the other dozen songs unfold, Moorer continues to be an active participant in her situation rather than a passive victim of her circumstance — the album brimming with defiance, even destruction, but never defeat.
The soul searching title track finds Moorer affirming her faith in the simplicity of things. She sings, “I guess it comes down to believing, and whether we do or we don’t. I guess it comes down to staying or leaving, and whether we will or we won’t.” There’s no need to make emotional mountains out of practical molehills, after all. Later, on “I’m Doing Fine,” Moorer spends three minutes convincing herself as much as anyone that the light at the end of the tunnel is, indeed, still shining… right in here eyes.
Just before that comes in the set, she steps out of the husband-wife dynamic to address some broader familial relationships. The quietness of “Blood” conveys the inherent knowing that comes only through the shared genetics of siblings, while the retro groove of “Mama Let the Wolf In” serves as an apology that this particular mother feels a need to make to her son.
There’s a richness and a relevance to Down to Believing that gets dressed up in melodies and arrangements which land somewhere between her sister Shelby Lynne and Sheryl Crow. And, anyone taking a ride on the rollercoaster that is grief and loss would do well to give this thing a listen… or 20.