Dao Strom

Send Me Home

This is a story that begins in the Perfume River and ends with Jesus riding in a car. The middle is all broken hearts and broken bottles, the stuff of great country music. Austinite Dao Strom sings a lonely song for the entire world to hear, backed by bassist Kevin Fox and guitar/banjo player Lew Card, and her wanderlust makes for a beautiful album that endears you from the start. Lyrics like “Lost and limber, this world was not made for a left-handed drinker” and “I only miss you when I’m feeling lazy,” tug and tear, while Strom’s voice teeters on the verge of cracking every song. Yet it’s her visceral lyrics pulling her back and the listener in, making you feel the pillow against her cheek, hear the freeway through her half-cracked windows. She’s a storyteller, and a damn good one; her talent for creating narrative can also be read in her book Grass Roof, Tin Roof, which draws from her experience of coming from Vietnam to America. Recorded on a Fifties analog tape machine, Send Me Home is a refreshing bit of nostalgia for a time when Jesus riding in your car was an everyday event.

***.5

This article appears in April 15 • 2005.

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