I have to confess, I’m a bit late to the Jelly Roll party. But that’s just my first confession, actually. Here’s my second: I’m guilty of doing that thing that we’re taught not to do in school. That being judging a book by its cover.
I think we can probably agree that the Jason DeFord doesn’t fit the typical country singer profile. He’s somewhat overweight (though he’s recently lost 100 pounds or so). He has tattoos on his face. And—here’s that rush to judgment—when I’ve seen him or heard about him the last couple of years, I dismissed his look as an attention-getting schtick. He seemed to come out of nowhere in the last couple of years, showing up all over the place. Why are so many people connecting with him? I wondered—again, a bit condescendingly.
But since he won Best New Artist at the Grammys earlier this year—never mind that his latest album, Beautifully Broken, is his 10th since 2012—I figured maybe we ought to find out what all the fuss was about.
Well.
I was wrong. Not only can he sing, but the songwriting here will rip your heart out—in a good way. Jelly Roll has talked openly about his checkered past, including dealing drugs and stints in prison, not to mention his own battles with drug and alcohol abuse. But his faith has played a huge, ahem, role in reorienting his life in a redemptive direction.
All of those subjects come into focus here, as Jelly Roll reflects on the immense tension between addiction and grace, failure and forgiveness. There are some bumps in the road, as we’ll see. But in Beautifully Broken we’re also confronted with some genuinely profound insights about how God’s love reshapes and remakes our brokenness.
[Note: This review covers the 14 tracks on the physical album release as well as eight additional tracks on the digital release. It does not cover the six tracks on the deluxe edition.]
Album opener “Winning Streak” immediately sets the confessional context for the album, narrating the struggle of sobriety and Jelly Roll’s recognition of his need for a 12-step program to help him: “Right now, I got two shaky hands only one way to stop ’em/And I haven’t touched a drop in seven hours, three minutes/Hardly sobered up, already want to quit quittin’/Sweatin’ in an old church basement/Wishin’ I was wasted/Never thought I’d say this:/ ‘Hello, my name is Jason.’” He says that joining such a group initially felt shameful (“I was so ashamed to be in this seat”) until meeting a man there who understood his experience completely: “He said, ‘Everybody here’s felt the same defeat/Nobody walks through these doors on a winning streak’.”
Virtually every track includes vulnerable reflections on shame and self-hatred, contrasted with learning to accept yourself and accepting God’s forgiveness. In “What’s Wrong With Me,” Jelly Roll talks about self-condemnation (“If you only knew all the worthless I fought/Covered my arms up with cursive/To cover the thoughts I was cursed with/Guess I just hated the person I saw”). Now, however, he’s able to say, “I found a way to move on and sing and new song/It took a real long time to see/But I’m alright with what’s wrong with me.”
But Jelly Roll’s positive perspective goes deeper that mere self-affirmation. On “Heart of Stone,” he prays, “Dear Lord, can you help me?/I’ve fallen out of grace/ … I’m shackled in these chains/I’m haunted by the lies of every time I said I’d change/ … I ain’t losin’ hope/That somehow you can make a heart of gold from this heart of stone.” Meanwhile, “Liar” confronts the inner voice (either his own or perhaps the devil’s) that tempts him to surrender to self-destructive addiction and hopelessness.
“Unpretty” laments poor choices in the past and yet seems, paradoxically, to understand how those decisions have shaped the man Jelly Roll is today: “I hate the man I used to be/But he’ll always be a part of me/ … I know it’s unpretty.”
“Grace,” “Hey Mama” and “Woman” pay tribute to the faithfulness of Jelly Roll’s wife, despite his deep struggles and the separation caused by a musician’s life on the road. On “My Cross,” he longs to see the destructive cycle of sin broken instead of passing it on to his two children: “I hope to God you don’t get my addictions/Don’t deal with my demons or make my decisions/Yeah, I hope the apple falls far from the tree/And the sins of the father stop right here with me.”
“Smile So Much” deals with finding strength from God amid the spiritual trials of life: “I prayed for calmer waters, God gave me taller waves/I didn’t understand it ’til I wound up findin’ strength.”
There are more positive moments here—quite a lot more, actually. But these lyrical snippets offer a representative sampling of the kinds of real-but-redemptive messages that infuse these songs.
Album opener “Winning Streak” pairs raw emotions with equally raw language: “The broken man in the mirror can’t look at me ’cause he’s guilty/And I swear that the last couple months, that m—–f—er tried to kill me/ … D—, this s—’s exhausting.” Since those harsh profanities show up on the first track, I thought they might be setting the tone for the rest of the album. That said, we only get a couple of uses of “d–n” and “h—” in the remaining 21 tracks that we reviewed, as well as a couple of references to “hell” as a spiritual destination.
The album deals with the serious subjects of alcohol and drug abuse. Though there’s little, if anything, in these lyrics that glorifies such choices, they still serve as a thematically mature backdrop for much of what Jelly Roll sings about.
As a general rule, I hate surprises. But this is one surprise that I’m glad to embrace. I didn’t expect to be moved quite so deeply listening to Beautifully Broken. But even though I’ve never wrestled with substance abuse, I still connected with Jelly Roll’s insights about shame and insecurity, and how our hidden cracks and emotional craters tempt us to hide in the shadows, even as we pretend that we’re fine. Jelly Roll pairs that vulnerability with a redemptive faith in God’s ability to pull us out of the darkness, and he understands that it’s not something we can simply muster up on our own in isolation.
Beautifully Broken feels like a deeply Christian album—albeit one where that brokenness is occasionally expressed with harsh profanity. For some potential listeners, those isolated moments of vulgarity may be a deal killer. That said, if you’re a country music fan who harkens to songs about gritty redemption, Beautifully Broken just might be worth your consideration.
After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.
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