“’Motel Room’ was crafted with the same dear friend in mind for whom ‘Bridges’ was penned. It’s Inherently a good-time song, an upbeat Country track well suited to driving country roads. It reminisces about the carefree days of youth when the drinking still held an aura of magic and adventure. ‘Tearing down them city streets, rollin’ down them country roads, we were gonna live forever…’ The chorus, however, confronts the harsh reality of alcoholism. ‘But now you got your 6 of Bourbon and your party of one, and you’re drinking alone, and it’s 4 in the morning in a motel room.’”
About Bob Sumner
Bob Sumner believes that music is made to evolve. On latest work, Some Place to Rest Easy, you’ll hear countrypolitan strings alongside ambient sensibilities; tasteful synth tracks followed seamlessly by numbers with dobro and steel guitar. It’s an album that takes as much inspiration from the audio production of Randy Travis as it does the lyrical soul of Big Thief’s Adrienne Lenker—a melding of eras, sounds, concepts, and stylings that’s informed by the past, but never bound by it.
Songs like “Don’t We Though” explore how the same relationship can be both loving and tumultuous, with smooth instrumentals that underlay a more complicated lyrical landscape. “Forty Years on the Floor” and “Lonesome Sound” make ripe soundtracks for country drives. And three songs on the album—”Bridges,” “Motel Room,” and “Is It Really Any Wonder”—touch on the loss of multiple loved ones to alcoholism.
More than a single sound, influence, instrumental, or theme, the through line in Sumner’s music has always been vulnerability.“I always want people to feel something,” Sumner explains. “If I heard that this album helped somebody that was feeling down, even just by feeling some other emotion for a little while, that’s the number one thing for me.”
