One of Billy Webster’s greatest and early songs, “Mulberry Street,” in its first iteration was infused with a 10000 Maniacs–style lyrical and soulful sweetness that ably served the playful, updated Dr. Seuss conceit. In its re-tread, Webster has respectfully set master and mentor Natalie Merchant aside, discovering a harder and more urgent sound that astonishingly draws out the underbelly of the song, starkly demonstrating the profound impact of sonic choice on lyric takeaway, transforming what I heard twenty years ago as a pop affirmation (“And to think that my hope’s alive on Mulberry Street, my heart knows there’s somebody there,” or “It’s sad and it’s simple and it’s quiet and sweet”) into something darker and more complex (“I am hate and I am love, I’m the hawk and I’m the dove, and I know the meaning of embracing what you know is wrong,” and “Did you hear someone scream, are you caught in between, what you’ve heard and what you’ve seen, and what you’ve only read about,” and “Maybe there’s just nothing left to cling to,” or “You are Dunne and you are Poe, you will bleed the blood will flow, and as you come things will go, in a constant state of doubt”), and defiant (“I’m twisting into shape again, and I’m unashamed of where I’ve been”), again underscoring with literate fullness the dualities and paradoxes of love, with even its affirmations ambiguous: “She’s writing my name on the frostbitten sheet, and the letters dissolve in the air.”

Written & Produced by Billy Webster
Lead Guitar by Carl Basler
Recorded at The Jersey Dream
(c) Shampoo Girl Music