Standout gem “Never Been Completely Free,” a perfect song, is so literate and affecting that, like Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” I want to quote the whole thing. With a robust and mature authenticity, Webster cynically catalogues, with biting humor, having hit all the marks of external approbation (“I’ve already been an intellectual monster, already mailed my international postcard,” and “I’m very happy in a depressing way”), while yet lingering under the malaise of the oppressive zeitgeist (“I’ve never been completely free”), which he calls out (“I blame it on the people who make up the rules,” and spectacularly, “I blame it on the people who don’t know how to be wealthy”), and finally, in his hallmark move, makes it personal: “I’ve never been completely free from you,” accessing a relational and archetypal outrage and restlessness that could be directed at society, at a lover or parent, or even at himself, one that is at the heart of rock and roll itself—the unqualified desire to be free. “Never Been Completely Free” is also a showcase for Basler’s soaring guitar, which might best be described as “songs of the humpback wail,” infectiously hooking and then expansively deconstructing to the perfect point of near noise, at times evoking Tom Morello, and shimmering to a close with a lovely, echoing whammy.

Written & Produced by Billy Webster
Lead Guitar by Carl Basler
Recorded at The Jersey Dream
(c) Shampoo Girl Music, 2020