Holly Golightly holds a seat as one of those rare musicians who maintains the same sound without turning stale. This is especially impressive considering her musical career of 20+ years (while sharing a name with the iconic figure in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s—her birth name, by the way).
Golightly's newest release, Do the Get Along, contains a natural confidence not achieved by many revivalist artists today. Like much of her work, the sound blends sultry 60s retro and country blues while holding debt to her garage rock beginnings. Her voice is unmistakable (like crystallized honey—sweet, gritty). The songs house lyrics that illustrate an honest, instinctive defiance, usually with a touch of tongue-in-cheek. They deal largely in country-themed territories of scorned lovers and manic romance, often vaguely reminiscent of something to connect with.
Epitomized in most of her music, the album is a mix of original songs and covers. One is a slinky, gender-swapped version of Steve King’s “Satan Is Her Name.” In another, she pulls from jazz and R&B singer Ruth Brown in her cover of “I Don’t Know.”
The opening track “Obstacles” showcases Golightly’s aptitude for bootstrap resilience. She sings: “Ain’t nothin’ gonna knock me off my feet” and “Bring it on, there’s nothing I can’t face.” In “Quicksand,” she explores the feeling of being pulled under by something (“I’m in too deep, I’m sinking in”). She expresses frustration with someone who wants too much and can’t play nice in “The Get Along.”
Her wit comes through in “Ladies Excuse Me,” an old-age country tale of stealing another person’s lover in a bar. The sonic and lyrical structures of “Love (Can’t You Hear Me)” and “Hypnotized” mimic a kind of manic, obsessive quality that love can evoke (repetitive choral loops and beats made for dancing with your sweetheart in the kitchen).
“Pretty Clean” acts as a 60s pop rock outlier in the middle of the record while sticking to that familiar Golightly aesthetic before moving back to rock reverb and country twang in “Lost.” In the final two songs, she takes on themes of time, loss, and moving on (“Time, it catches up. It’s just the blinking of the night... Time to move along”).
Do the Get Along was released during a polarized time when we all could learn to “do the get along” (in both Golightly’s native England and the states where she currently lives in Georgia). This is not to say that the album has any political leanings, just that it’s a welcome step outside of all the current noise into a sound we may actually want to hear.
Unvarnished and inherently pleasing to the ears, Golightly continues to impress with this one.