“I Hope” warns that children learn by watching adults. Youthful idealism grows up on “Favorite Year.” Other songs express a desire to get the most out of life (“I Like It”), oppose threats and violence (“Not Ready to Make Nice”), and find couples working through rough patches (“Baby Hold On”). A mother’s tender “Lullaby” lavishes love on a new baby. The haunting “Silent House” is a grown daughter’s loving pledge to keep her Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother’s memories alive. While mourning a world in which “children lose their youth too soon,” the singer finds peace in the “Easy Silence” that exists between intimates. A carefree, gypsy-like adventure with friends leads to self-discovery on “The Long Way Around,” however …
It mentions drinking, smoking with hippies and defiantly rejecting social norms. Alcohol also appears on “Bitter End.” A woman justifies deception on “Everybody Knows” (“You may think I’m telling lies, but I just call it getting by”). The Chicks emerged from their anti-Bush controversy bitter and eager to lash out at critics, which they do on “Lubbock or Leave It” and “Not Ready to Make Nice.” “Voice Inside My Head” finds a wife and mother longing for a lover from her past. There are two mild profanities.
Not an effort likely to raise the trio’s Red-State stock. Too much self-indulgent whining and left-of-center morality, too few quality tunes like “Silent House.”
