Josh Ritter’s Acoustic Tour: Step right this way

By Mad Dog
Published: Oct 16, 2013

Did you seriously think I wouldn’t slip Josh Ritter into my novel? If so, silly you. Here’s what I wrote:

I set my iPhone for random music, inserted my ear buds, and listened as I walked. There was even some striding — give me a crisp drummer and a bass player with wit, and I have to resist the urge to dance.

Then I was served a song I knew well: “Joy to You Baby,” by Josh Ritter.

The song came with a story, and because it was one of Blair’s favorites, I knew it. Fourteen months after he married another musician, Ritter was on tour, in some godforsaken hotel in some second-tier city, when his wife called and ended the marriage. He was crushed. All he could do was write, and that he did: bitter, angry verses, boxes of them.

I don’t know how he fought his way out of that gloom, but he did, and in this song, his only wish is joy — joy to the city, joy to the streets, the freeway, the cars, and “joy to you baby, wherever you are tonight.” Joy to his ex-wife? Yes. Even her.

I thought: We can set the rope down. It has been done. It can be done. Even by me. Certainly by me.

Josh will surely sing this on his Acoustic Tour. Info here.

And here’s ‘Joy to You Baby’ more as less as you’ll hear it in concert.