While the likes of Chase Rice settle for singing about women in a manner that would have been sexist in the 1930's, Dierks Bentley sets his goals higher in terms of musical content. The signer has always been more at home with songs that have some sort of painful emotion laced on them. Now, he's done some fun upbeat tunes (5-1-5-0, Drunk On A Plane), but his more somber work is just masterful. Just one listen of Settle for A Slowdown and you'll know that it is in working with the more melancholy aspects of the human condition that Bentley finds glorious success.
And so, with his third song from his 2014 album Riser, Bentley returns to singing about more somber material in the single Say You Do. In it, Bentley sings about an ex-lover who he tries to coerce into spending one more night with him in an effort to replicate past romantic joys. The three writers of this song, Shane McNally, Matt Ramsey, Trevor Rasen, do an excellent job at keeping the emotions very real, very authentic by keeping a nice balance between subtlety and showiness.
The song makes simple and effective use of instruments, with many of these songs lyrics being simply backed up the strumming of a guitar. Those parts of the song do a fantastic job reinforcing the solemnity that pervades the entire tune, and compliments the vocals of Bentley superbly. Yep, Bentley knocks it out of the ballpark again here, managing to keep the song engaging in a manner many artists couldn't even imagine. Even in his weaker work (Am I The Only One comes to mind) Bentley has a knack for conjuring up very memorable voice work, and needless to say, he does that terrifically here.
What I really adore about the song though is its lack of resolution; it doesn't end with the character the lyrics center around starting a new life, finding a new girl or even reuniting with his ex. It ends as it begins, with the character longing for human connection. It's an extremely gutsy narrative choice, but it more than succeeds in this astonishing song.
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