Single Review: ‘Bruises’ – Train featuring Ashley Monroe
12 years ago Liv Carter 4
Songwriters: Pat Monahan, Espen Lind, Amund Bjørklund
Train‘s versatile California 37 album contains this duet with Pistol Annies‘ Ashley Monroe.
We find Pat Monahan and Monroe in the roles of high school friends catching up after 10 years, talking about shared acquaintances and swapping stories. The friends find comfort in each other’s inevitable disappointments, reminding both them and us that we all experience triumph and failure. In between their exchanges comes the chorus:
These bruises make for better conversation
Loses the vibe that separates
It’s good to let you in again
You’re not alone in how you’ve been
Everybody loses
We all got bruises
Fully utilizing the idea of dialogue, the two friends take over from each other mid-line, adding energy to their conversation. While Monahan has referred to this as a country song, the tune’s underlying frame is unmistakably pop, but over that 4/4 percussion come the rootsy tones of delicate acoustic guitars. Refreshingly, the arrangement runs through to the choruses; their perfect harmonies the only thing that’s making them sound a little bigger than the verses.
Monahan, Lind and Bjørklund co-wrote several tracks following the re-boot of Train. If they can keep delivering material like this, long may that collaboration continue.
Liv Carter
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.
Latest posts by Liv Carter (see all)
- Well yes, racism, but it’s more complicated - February 13, 2017
- Black River Entertainment had a great reason to party! - October 25, 2016
- Keith Urban returns to the States for US arena leg of his “ripCORD WORLD TOUR 2016” - October 10, 2016
