On the opening title track of his new solo album, Dan Auerbach sings a song about wanting to write a song—before invoking the age-old myth that it’s often best to just stop trying and let the tune find you. “Songs don’t grow on trees/You gotta pick ’em out of the breeze,” he sings on “Waiting on a Song,” a twinkly hit of countrified pop that, as the album cover suggests, sounds very much like it came wafting in as Auerbach reclined on a pile of leaves. But the end result is ultimately a testament to the great paradox of songwriting: it takes a lot of heavy lifting to make something that sounds so effortless.
Auerbach moved from his native Akron, Ohio to Nashville back in 2010, where he has since overseen the Black Keys become one of the biggest, busiest rock bands in America (and by extension, became an in-demand producer for everyone from Dr. John to Lana Del Rey.) Now, comfortably entrenched in his Easy Eye Sound studio, Auerbach’s approach for Waiting on a Song was a lot more like Planning for a Song. The album assembles a roots-rock dream team that includes famous names like John Prine, Duane Eddy, and Mark Knopfler, but also seasoned Nashville tunesmiths like Luke Dick, Michael Heeney, and David Ferguson. As per Music City tradition, songwriting for the album was treated like the job that it is, with tunes developed and recorded on a set weekly schedule.
The result is an album that both bears very little relation to Auerbach’s past efforts, yet nonetheless exudes his signature retro-soul fetishism. Whether it was his 2009 solo debut Keep It Hid or his 2015 foray with the Arcs, Auerbach’s outside pursuits have had the Keys’ muddy footprints all over them. But Waiting on a Song could be his first record without a drop of the blues in the mix, with Auerbach favoring the less gruff, more melodic register in his voice atop a studio-smoothed concoction of country, soul, folk, and power pop.
With “Livin’ in Sin” and shuffling “Shine on Me” (powered by Knopfler’s unmistakable thumb-pickin’ tone), the album essentially functions as Auerbach’s less-democratic version of the Traveling Wilburys, like one of those ’70s-focused satellite radio stations where hit songs from different genres are grouped together by virtue of their common decade and blur into one another. The symphonic soul of “Malibu Man” crosswires the grooves of Al Green with the glittery choruses of T. Rex; “King of a One Horse Town” comes on like Neil Young’s “Down by the River” played on acoustic guitar and produced by John Barry.
While Waiting on a Song is casual in execution, it’s extremely intricate in construction, with each disco-string sweep, brass-section stab, and razor-sharp acoustic strum deployed with push-button precision. At times, the album feels less like a traditional singer/songwriter affair than a business card for Auerbach’s studio. Alas, Waiting on a Song also betrays the limitations of its song-factory set-up, in that the consummate craftsmanship renders the lyrics a secondary, impersonal concern.
Even if he isn’t explicitly singing the blues here, Auerbach still peddles its well-worn witchy-woman cliches. The undercooked folk-funk of “Cherrybomb” spins a gold-digger caricature about a girl who’s “sweeter than an apple pie” but bolts “as soon as my money went away.” And though the banjo-plucked “Stand by My Girl” initially sounds like a pledge of commitment, it’s delivered by a back-door man who’s afraid “she’ll kill me if I don’t.” They’re the sort of eye-rolling lines that are more easily digested within the Black Keys, but are left hung out to dry by this album’s pristine production and light-hearted approach. For all of Auerbach’s eagerness to deliver the Music Row-worthy songwriting goods, Waiting on a Song can you leave you wishing he had waited a little longer.
