Charlie Parr has the “Best Song to Cry To”

This week’s issue of City Pages is the annual “Best of the Twin Cities” edition. It’s typical for one or two Duluth persons, places or things get a mention. This year it’s Charlie Parr, whose song “Sometimes I’m Alright” was named Best Song to Cry To.

Best Song to Cry To
“Sometimes I’m Alright” by Charlie Parr
Raw, unguarded emotions course through Charlie Parr’s excellent new record, Dog. The Duluth roots and blues singer-songwriter lays bare his struggle with depression and his fight to suppress suicidal thoughts throughout the album, and he illuminates that delicate balance perfectly on the tender confessional “Sometimes I’m Alright.” Parr’s spare banjo work gives the song an anguished warmth, while his quivering vocal expresses the song’s fraught and fragile emotional core. When Parr sings “Sometimes I’m alright/Another time it’s hard to tell/Like finding light/In the bottom of the darkest well,” it’s as though we’re receiving an unexpectedly thorough and soul-searching response to the small-talk staple question, “How are you?”