Bart Crow Band Should Be Flying With Success
Friday, March 28th, 2008 
The Bart Crow Band burst onto the Texas Music scene in 2005 and wated no time making their mark. Finally, the band’s first ablum release, produced top 10 hits Wear My Ring and Driftin’ In The Wind, as well as other outstanding songs All I Need and Dog House Roses. If you are a fan of Red Dirt Country, then you too have been eagerly awaiting the release of the Bart Crow Band’s sophmore release, Desperate Hearts. The 13 song album has a little bit of everything - country, rock and roll, ballads, you name it. Crow himself wrote or co-wrote 11 of the 13 tracks.
The album kicks off with a rearranged version of the 2007 hit Driftin’ In The Wind. Personally, this was one of my favorite songs of the year. Crow somehow takes a suicide song and makes it an uptempo song. It’s wonderfully written and just an incredible song. Just like any relationship “when we both started out, we were the best of friends,” he is unable to handle her leaving and asks her “can you taste that powder baby, can you taste my evil sin.” In Back Down, the man is tired of the jealous woman, who continually tries to keep him down. But hes’ not down for the count and he’s looking forward to her judgement day. “You’ll be looking up baby, and I won’t even look down,” signifying that she will be in Hell. Hollywood is the story of the girl who gave up everything to make her mark as a movie star. It’s not the best song on the album, but it’s far from bad too. The band’s current radio single is Understand. The song is about forgiveness and love and how they have their own understanding about it, regardless of what everybody else around town thinks or says.
The Jason Boland penned St. Valentine is a beautifully written song. The man is asking for a little help from above “I just want somebody to love, if you could find the time,” as if he’ll be sent a gift or a blessing in the form of a woman to love. Sweet Imitations is an uptemo and down tempo songall in one. Very strange, but it’s done very well. The song is a story about a cheating man in a bar, then a motel room. He professes that his wife is loving a fool because even those he’s promised he’s changed, “it would kill her if she knew where her sweet love was tonight.” The irony is that if she did leave, he says that he would be back in the bar that represents his prison cell. Anybody who has ever suffered from a broken heart, can relate to Roses. This song represents love in the real world, and how no matter what somebody promises, it can change in a minute, and promises are broken. This song is pledge to try to win her back. “Don’t be mad at me if I call you late at night. Don’t be mad at me if I ask your friends if you’re alright. Don’t be mad at me if I cried all night ’til four. Don’t be mad if I leave roses on your door.” When you listen to this song, you can almost feel his pain, as well rehash some of your own pain from previous heartbreaks. Once A Day in another song about dailey heartbreak, but not quite as powerful as the previous song.
Desperate Hearts is the title track of the song and I think Boland says it best when he describes this song as “a rock song in country clothing, hot on the trail of lonliness mistaken for love.” We’ll go with that! Change is a bit of a heavier song about the world today with a little bit of a political twist built in. “We got the men and the women, dying with their children, for a presidential ribbon they don’t understand.” Singing about the girl who has left him for New York, the man says “I’m so damn proud of you, even if my heart is sad and blue. I love you, I just love you.” Tami is a song about dragging his wife through a marriage of hell and how he’s accepting the responsibility for that. This is followed by the opposite of that. Forever is a song of proposal singing to the woman who has become his best friend and that he wants to becomes his wife. “Cause I want to lay by your side. For the rest of my life. Today will you please be my wife.” This is a love song that women will love, and the men will say “come on man, what are doing to us.”
Desperate Hearts is an album that has a little bit of everything, and there really isn’t a bad song on the thirteen song set. The album has a lot of attitude about it with honest, understandable lyrics. Bart Crow’s songwriting is exceptional and this country rock band should be in for great things in the future. The album’s title Desperate Hearts would lead you to believe this is an album of sad ballads, but it’s rocked up country to the core. I was worried that the Bart Crow Band’s second album wouldn’t live up to the first, but it did that and more. I just love these and this is a recommended album for anybody who enjoys Red Dirt music.
