Ah, to be in love in New York…

When Steve Earle married singer-songwriter Allison Moorer in 2005 they moved to New York and took up residence in Greenwich Village. “Washington Square Serenade” is his love letter to his new hometown and by the sound of it, Steve is a happy man. It’s his best album in ten years and one of his best in his twenty plus years of recording.

Gone is the political vitriol that characterized his last two albums, replaced by a keen sense of observation. The album starts with the kiss off song to his home for twenty years, “Tennessee Blues” which includes the mantra “goodbye guitar town.” You can almost smell the street vendors in “City of Immigrants” and “Down Here Below” which describes New York from the vantage point of a red tailed hawk flying over Central Park (“God I love this town!”)  He reminisces about the home he left behind in “Jericho Road”, “Oxycontin Blues” and “Red is the Color.” A couple of the best love songs he’s ever written, “Sparkle and Shine” and “Days Are Never Long Enough” feature Moorer on background vocals. In one of the few nods to politics, “Steve’s Hammer (for Pete)”, Earle promises “when the war is over and the union’s strong, won’t sing no more angry songs.”

Earle’s last album “The Revolution Starts…Now” was rushed released in the run up to the 2004 election, but on “Washington Square Serenade” he’s in no hurry. The liner notes find him in a reflective mood. He says “In the next life the first thing I’ll do is find Allison before anyone else does and then I’ll carry her away with me to live in New York City.” Sounds like he’s in heaven already.

Listen for lots of songs from Steve Earle’s “Washington Square Serenade” on Paul Shugrue’s new music show “Out of the Box” Monday through Thursday from 7pm to 9pm, Saturday afternoon from 1pm to 5pm and on-demand at www.whrv.org/outofthebox.