How To Walk Away (2008)
Juliana Hatfield
- The Fact Remains
- Shining On
- This Lonely Love
- My Baby…
- Just Lust
- Now I’m Gone
- Remember November
- So Alone
- Such A Beautiful Girl
- Law Of Nature
digital bonus track in some territories: Not Enough
The liveontomorrow Track-by-track Review, 2008:
The 2nd full studio album from Juliana on her own Ye Olde Records label, and a major departure from the raw studio feel of its predecessor Made In China.
When Juliana suggested that the songs taken from her 2007 collaboration with Frank Smith on the Sittin’ In A Tree EP were rejected songs from her forthcoming album, expectation was raised, particularly as that EP contained the sublime On Your Mind.
This anticipation is met with How To Walk Away and then some.
An album full of subtle hooks and melodies, with lush production this is Juliana at her most radio friendly but also her most ambitious.
Studio sessions with guest performers, ably engineered and produced by Andy Chase and the Stratosphere Studio team, have produced a result of more scope than anything since God’s Foot if not ever.
Track 1 sets the theme perfectly with the gorgeous The Fact Remains, a reflective look at behavioural traits and their possible change in future times - “maybe next time I will know how to walk away”.
Shining On is a light paced, breeze of positivism and the most familiar song to Juliana fans, having been streamed on her MySpace page for months prior to the album’s release.
The start of This Lonely Love brings a surprise on first listen. A replica of the underlying riff from It Should Have Been You from 2004's In Exile Deo, as if you have turned on shuffle play by mistake. The song soon moves into, dare it be said, funky territory for Juliana, with sweeping string noises, a lovely little guitar solo and shared vocals with Richard Butler (Psychedelic Furs) hitting the right spot.
My Baby... is a lament for the last embers of a relationship - yet presented in a comforting slow ballad style. Just gorgeous.
The middle songs of the album sound similar to Juliana's recent work. Just Lust is a different take on a relationship – "it’s just lust..it doesn’t mean I love you” and sounding akin to the polished feel of the In Exile Deo album. Now I’m Gone, complete with hand claps and a carefree rhythm, is similar in musical vein to Juliana's contributions to the Some Girls albums.
Track 7 is the delightful Remember November. Co-written with Juliana's brother Jason (who plays piano here) the song sees Juliana at her most lyrically poignant, appreciative and at ease with herself than we have perhaps ever heard her. Sensitive souls beware - this is a really emotional one - Juliana thankful to the song's recipient for giving "a reason to keep trying" and "a great escape from a lonely life"
So Alone is catchy but thankfully not irritating on repeated listens. This could be clichéd lyrics of teenage angst; "so alone, you wanna die and nobody knows" - but in the context of this arrangement it sound like an anthemic treat. Don't ask why it works - just enjoy that it does.
And then on Such A Beautiful Girl Matthew Caws (Nada Surf) provides backing vocal duties on another highlight co-written with Jason Hatfield. A delicate piano journey, describing a beautiful girl who lives in "an ugly world".
Law of Nature- a conventional album closer from perhaps Juliana's most conventional album. A luscious treat seeing Juliana return to her oft treaded musings on the inevitability of life's patterns, and perhaps addressing her thoughts on opening track The Fact Remains.
The album revisits themes explored on much of her previous work – isolation, loss, and behavioural patterns but never has she sounded more at ease with herself.
Musically it is multi layered but not cluttered, melding electric and acoustic guitars with layers of orchestration, and has the sound of a timeless singer songwriter album. It is an album which has the potential to expose Juliana to the wider audience she deserves and yet it may prove to be her musical swansong.
Periodically Juliana has hinted that she may retire from performing live if not from the music business altogether. Invariably this seems to have been due to uncertainty over her future plans and a general frustration with the music ‘industry’.
This time however the message seems to be more calculated. Coinciding with the release in 2008 of her book – When I Grow Up – A Memoir and a series of weekly blogs on julianahatfield.com where she has demystified numerous songs from her career, the presentation of this album seems to have purpose making the title as apt as it is magnificent.
Juliana is reflecting on two decades of songcraft and finally, after periods of dismissing much of her earlier work, feeling justifiably proud of her output. As if to underline this, she has made her most consistent, confident and universally appealing album of her career.
Whatever the future holds for Juliana, How To Walk Away is an astonishing achievement.
Personnel
Juliana Hatfield – vocals, guitar, keyboards
Andy Chase – guitar, keyboards, string arrangements, backing vocals
Jody Porter – guitar
Peter Adams – piano
Jason Hatfield – piano
Tracy Bonham – violin
Jeff Alan Hill – bass guitar, cello
Ethan Eubanks – drums
Rudyard Lee Cullers – backing vocals
Richard Butler – vocals on "This Lonely Love"
Matthew Caws – vocals on "Such a Beautiful Girl"
Other Reviews
"the most mature, confident assured, enjoyable, solid album of her solo career."
"this may very well be her first true masterpiece"
Allan Raible, ABC News
"a record that Juliana Hatfield always seemed on the verge of delivering but finally has."
9/10
Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com
"surprisingly vital"
Mikael Wood, Spin
"by far her most listener-friendly, refined work yet"
Christopher John Treacy, Boston Herald
"sweet, mournful melodies coupled alongside delicate washes of vintage, underground guitar"
Bill Adams, Groundcontrolmag.com
“It stands shoulder-to-shoulder with her best works, including Bed (1998), Beautiful Creature (2000), in exile deo (2004) and Made in China (2005).”
Jeff Gemmill, The Old Grey Cat
World Cafe Performance
From October 23, 2008, Juliana interviewed and performing full band versions of The Fact Remains and This Lonely Love:
Interviews
From an interview on September 9, 2008 with the now defunct brightestyoungthings.com (Internet Archive link):
BYT: Can you pick a couple songs from the new record and give us a quick blurb of trivia on them?
“This Lonely Love” has been misinterpreted as a love song- a lost-love song. But it’s actually a song about the love of music. The feeling that a voice or a song can elicit can be incredibly powerful and passionate. And it is a lonely love because you can’t grab onto your object of affection (the song/the voice).”
“In “The Fact Remains” I sing “I stayed until the Star-Spangled Banner played and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.” People under a certain age may not understand what I am saying here. I am referring to the 1970’s, when I was a child, before cable television existed. Back then, there were only a handful of TV stations and they would all shut down and go off the air at night, and then come back on in the morning. At about 1 in the morning, the star-spangled banner would play, often accompanied by an image of the American flag flapping in the breeze, and then when the song was over the stations would go blank- would go to sleep- until morning. Today, of course, TV stations never shut down. And there are hundreds of them. They are all 24-7 but it wasn’t always this way. There was once a time for sleep, for darkness, for quiet, for contemplation.”
BYT: Over the years you’ve covered or referenced a lot of quality tunes. Can you take your iPod/iTunes/Zune/Whatever, put it on all song shuffle, and tell us the first 5 tracks that come up. No cheating, even if it’s embarrassing.
“Beautiful” by Ivy
“Theme From ‘Mahogany’” by Diana Ross
“The Losing” by the Pretenders
“Cinnamon Girl” by Neil Young
“It’s Too Late” by Carole King
Joan Anderman wrote an article for The Boston Globe in August 2008, which included quotes from Juliana, Gary Smith, and the album’s producer Any Chase (see also the press kit below):
There's a secret meaning to the title of Hatfield's new album, an atmospheric collection of pop tunes organized around a theme of leaving. "How to Walk Away" refers to another possible departure. Hatfield - who makes her living from music and financed the recording with an unexpectedly big royalty check from song placements in various films and television shows - has been flirting for years with the idea of retiring. She went into the studio last year thinking that this album, the 10th of her solo career, might well be her swan song - a state of mind that thrilled her producer, Andy Chase."I don't blame her for feeling at the end of her rope," says Chase, a member of the band Ivy and a massive Hatfield fan, who courted her (as a collaborator) for half a decade before Hatfield said yes. "She's been playing to the same audience year after year, and when sales are going down rather than up, you're wondering why you're even doing it. Who's going to buy this? Does anybody really care? I told her, 'If you make a record that's a leap, you may have a chance to reinvigorate your career. Or let's go out with a bang.' My agenda was to do something much more refined, something groovy and evocative, and bring out what I thought was a beautiful textured voice, which had been buried in a rock guitar pastiche or because Juliana wouldn't sing out."
Hatfield always hated her thin, girlish voice, at least until recently. But Chase put her songs into lower keys, and Hatfield discovered that she has a deeper, silky range. Ironically, she's so pleased (as she should be) with how the album turned out, Hatfield is reconsidering her decision to walk away from music.
Will Layman, interviewing Juliana for PopMatters on August 4, 2008:
How To Walk Away sounds, to my ears, highly crafted or knowing. Though the lyrics sound related to your personal life, the songs sound more like “stories” to me rather than confessions.
You are completely wrong. The songs are all very personal, but I put a lot of work into crafting them so they didn’t sound like diary entries. I want them to be songs that can stand alone. I’m glad that you think they sound less confessional. If people can hear the songs as individually well-crafted entities, then there is a remove where people can push me out of the equation and enjoy the songs on their own and not have to feel like they’re only about my personal life.
Jesse Sposato, for the now defunct Sadie Magazine (Internet Archive link), September 2008:
On your new album, the song “Just Lust” is said to be a postfeminist anthem that turns the idea of women as the emotional, needy sex on its head, addressing an emotional needy male, which I loved. Did you feel there was a societal need to write a song like this, or was this more of a personal thing?
Juliana: It really was just a very personal song. But I guess I realized when I was writing it that people were going to hear it and think of it in terms of male/female relations and culture. And that was okay with me because I think a lot of times women are assumed to be the weaker sex and the needy sex, and I’m just saying in the song, it’s not always like that. I’ve known plenty guys that were weak and needy and jealous and clingy, when I am not. So, I’m just writing about my truth.
Juliana, interviewed by Julia Askenase for Paste Magazine, July 2008: (article no longer online - Internet Archive link)
Paste: Tell me about the sound of your new album. Were you consciously going for a mellower pop sound than some of the grungier rock of your earlier albums, particularly your last full-length, Made in China (2005)?
Yes, I was definitely going for that. That's why I hired Andy Chase to produce it. He's known for well-produced, sleek, very pulled-together recordings. And, you know, very pop, very polished. I thought that the combination of Andy and me, with my kind of raw sloppiness, would make a cool mixture of raw and slick… I wanted something that was very nicely produced, but didn't lose any of the energy, you know what I mean?
Paste: In the opener, "The Fact Remains," you wrote: "Next time maybe I will know how to walk away with pride and grace and faith in myself / knowing how the world works and the way that things change." Is this about a relationship that's gone sour, or is it about your life and career?
It's everything, yeah. It's kind of both, I guess. I think it's just stepping away from a situation or situations that have gotten kind of messed up and needing to get away from [them] just to get some clarity. And trying to learn from past mistakes so I can move on, move forward and not make the same mistakes again.
promo tour poster
Myspace Banner
How To Walk Away was released in the glorious era of Myspace. Here’s what Juliana’s homepage banner looked like in 2008:
Demo Disc
Juliana released a limited edition bonus cd by mail order with initial copies of the album. It featured a number of home demos, many with a very basic drum machine backing. The tracklist also included tracks from the Sittin' In A Tree album and a few previously unreleased songs.
In 2011, further copies of this cd were made available as part of Juliana's PledgeMusic project for her There’s Always Another Girl album.
Press Kit
More reviews and features were included in Juliana’s 2008 press kit from her then publicists Big Hassle, viewable in full as a pdf with images relevant to HTWA here:
2021 Solo Livestream
On March 20, 2021, Juliana performed How To Walk Away in a solo livestreamed show from Q Division Studios where she alternated between acoustic and electric guitar, and used a loop pedal. This was the 4th in a series of full album shows, temporarily available for free on YouTube with donations accepted on a pay what you want basis. Kevin Wilson has a review at My Shuffled Life, and the show prompted Jeff Gemmill to write a retrospective piece on the beauty of the album at The Old Grey Cat.
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