Review: Hit and Run by Bill Mallonee

Today’s review is an album I picked up last year. It’s “Hit and Run” by Bill Mallonee. I really enjoyed this one. It’s very soft and introspective. My favorite song was probably Lucifer, which is about cocaine addiction.

Here are the lyrics:

from a simple plant
that was long growin’ there
from the king of the world
to your worst nightmare

got you an old recipe
and some chemicals to stir
it might’ve felt just like God once
but now it’s Lucifer

oh, to be clean
and you know the thing is sleeping
a scratch below your skin
and God knows if you wake it up
you gotta calm it down again
I wonder what it felt like,
when the waters flooded in
and it got too hard to swim

it feels just like a hunger
but you cannot feed the thing
always wants a new song,
that you can’t really sing
never shows you the whole truth
’til the poison’s leakin’ through
what you thought you were doin’
well now, it’s doin’ you

oh, to be clean
and you know the thing is sleeping
a scratch below your skin
and God knows if you wake it up
you gotta calm it down again
I wonder what it felt like,
when the waters flooded in
and it got too hard to swim
when it got too hard to swim

it could take a few years
to dig out of this mine
what with a shaft so deep and dark
it might take a lifetime
choices: they’re like diamonds
you found down there one night
you gotta grab the one that’s your true self
and bring it to the light

oh, to be clean
yeah, you know the thing is sleeping
a scratch below your skin
and God knows if you wake it up
you gotta calm it down again
I wonder what it felt like,
when the waters flooded in
and it got too hard to swim
yeah when it got too hard to swim
yeah it got too hard to swim

I’m constantly drawn to songs about addiction. They speak to a part of my heart that I don’t really understand (I figure few people really do understand that part of themselves).

The entire album is quite pleasant. It’s not the most memorable or shocking album Bill made, but it’s definitely a great example of where his sound and soul has been at in the last few years. It makes for a bittersweet evening’s music perhaps shared by a few chosen friends.