The Earworm: “If I Were A Butterfly” by Rayland Baxter
I selfishly love it when artists undergo some sort of change. Big or small, change has a way of impacting the self in many ways, not just physically but psychologically. And although it can be overwhelming to accept the ebb and flow of the unpredictability that is life, change offers us an opportunity to grow with it instead of under it. Because the actual adaptation to change can seem so blind, it’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole of never ending questions that beg to understand the meaning of life’s one inevitable truth – change. Like many people in any area of work, sometimes musicians’ bodies of work metamorphosize as their environments do, and usually for the better.
It appears that folk singer/songwriter Rayland Baxter is undergoing quite the change in his sound after the Nashville-based artist lost his father in 2020. His dad, an esteemed pedal steel player Bucky Baxter, had quite the list of successes as a musician. Baxter Sr. toured with Bob Dylan and worked with artists like Steve Earle and R.E.M., making an accomplished name for himself in the music world. After Baxter Sr. passed away at the age of 65, Baxter created his fourth record, “If I Were A Butterfly,” released in 2022.
In an interview with podcaster Andy Frasco, Baxter spoke about his father who appeared to him in his dreams just the morning of his death, before Baxter even knew about his father’s passing: “I talked to him in the dream, he said some things to me in the dream that were fucking eye opening,” Baxter told Frasco. The spiritual encounter must have influenced the main ideas of the record as both Baxter’s words and instrumentation borders on a kaleidoscopic search for expanded consciousness.
The album’s quirky sound chalks up to its bizarre backstory. Baxter utilized an old rubber band factory in Kentucky as the space to create his project, later calling it “Thunder Sound” studio. The rubber bands seemed to have inspired Baxter not only literally as one track is named “Rubberband Man,” but sonically. The record as a whole maintains a twangy foundation that aligns with Baxter’s folk-alt history, yet stretches through a multitude of genres, superseding any clearcut musical style; a psychedelic rock flair presides as its central overtone.
Behind the makings of the actual project lie a lengthy list of impressive collaborators, like Lennon Stella, members from Cage the Elephant and Shakey Graves, Motown percussionist Mz. Bobbye Hall, Zac Cockrell from Alabama Shakes, Baxter’s late father on the pedal steel guitar, and more.
Opening with the title track, “If I Were A Butterfly,” Baxter reminisces upon his childhood as a recording of him singing as a child mystically introduces the artist’s return. With a laid back, jazzy percussion and muffled voice effect over his speech, Baxter sets an experimental impression at the very beginning. The lyricism is heavily based in philosophical curiosity, begging questions in an echoed preset that seeks to illustrate Baxter’s very thoughts materialized, as if the listener is inside of his head. “Often I wonder, why do we live and die? / Why are we together tonight? / Why in the lights so bright you left me all alone in my basement?” Baxter takes his time building up the tension of the track, layering multiple vocals on top of one another, illustrating a deep thought process behind these large and introspective ideas. Baxter slips into a cool instrumental break while incorporating a handful of elements such as horns, sweetly-toned female backup vocals, and a staticing guitar amongst other subtleties that peak interest. Letting his guitar wail out, the multiple pieces of Baxter’s sound collide and suddenly burst in intensity, manifesting into a psychedelic drive that leaves so much for the listener to latch onto.
Rolling right into a hard-hitting rock track, “Billy Goat” carries a trudging beat with grungy drums and a cutting electric guitar, fitting for a song about a messy breakup. The anthem-like chorus holds shouty, rebellious energy completely fueling a rock ‘n’ roll tone. Taking turns between a mean guitar tone and funkadelic groove, a deep-seated dynamism lies in the instrumentation. Baxter seeks experimentation within his anger, laughing and yelping maniacally at parts as if he is having fun fighting with his now ex-partner. Even dropping in small hints of his classic folk genre, his vocals at times slip into twangy intonations and a harmonica break playfully caps the track, as if Baxter can’t help but bring his own Americana spin into this utterly fun psychedelic rock piece.
Inspired by the very factory he created the record in, “Rubberband Man” lends itself to an alternative rock creation, again blending his background of folk with a newfound ambiguity, much like the mysteries he seeks to uncover. The pace is quick and wild, with fleshy acoustic and electric guitar layers and fiery harmonies. Baxter incorporates yet another dizzy instrumental break, joining the different elements together to spur off into mayhem. It is apparent that Baxter put lots of time into building this sound into a full experience as his instrumentation truly shines as the most immersive part of the record. His lyrics, however, are a little too far out for me because of Baxter’s total devotion to a more psychedelic theme – the lyricism tends to get lost and unable to be grasped.
There are most definitely a couple of tracks that appear scattered, like “Buckwheat” and “Violence.” The two feel stagnant, lacking a bit of energy and thoughtfulness. However, the theatrics that Baxter has created thus far does not dip here as he strives to double down on drama. With the use of different instruments and vocal effects, Baxter explores new territory and most definitely seems to have fun while doing so, which is always appreciated.
“Tadpole” is arguably one of the most impressive works of the record. A harrowingly beautiful piano ballad about a neighbor of Baxter’s who committed suicide, this track proves to be a shining exception to my disappointment with the album’s lyricism thus far. The narration is utterly striking and tells us a detailed story of his childhood, so much so that the listener can envision Baxter’s old neighborhood. The piano holds a warm resonance in tandem with Baxter’s raw and guttural vocals. Describing the colors of his old home and favorite play spot below the town church, Baxter's ability to illustrate vignettes so clearly is as impressive as his childhood days are instantly charming: “Huckleberry, Finn and I / We used to ride around at night / Take a right on riverside and let our paper airplanes fly,” he sings. A pleading chorus of Baxter’s vocals sweep in harmony through the rise and fall of his dynamics.
“Loretta pulled the trigger on a quiet summer morning /
The shot was loud enough for everyone to hear on Cleve Street /
My mother wasn’t home that day /
So I cried, cried, cried.”
Here, his voice rings out in a gravelly belt that pleads with the loss of life and its bewildering and clouding confusion one feels thereafter in grief, the song marking a strong and moving testament to life’s most impactful events that later shape you into the individual you are today.
Baxter raises the energy after with “Dirty Knees,” another highlight of the record and personal favorite. He builds the introduction with a brassy trumpet and train-like percussion chug, once again weaving and fading the same childhood recording of Baxter as he used in the opening of the project. Dabbling in jazzy blues now, Baxter proves through the sultry bass, drums and horns that he too can extend his hand even further. While some lyrics straddle the line between introspective and pretentious (see “The heart, another beautiful instrument of art / My heart, a beautiful instrument, yours too”), Baxter sings with an easeful flow, like it's just stream-of-consciousness. Hypnotic and intimate, the piano trickles up and down the scale in improvisation, coloring a mysterious yet fascinating tone that adds a depthful sophistication. With these forces and his cheeky playfulness, Baxter achieves another tasteful and detailed work.
The record’s closing pace is more settled, with the down-on-your-luck bittersweetness of “Graffiti Street” and the slow rock of “Thunder Sound” render a more settled mood. Baxter then fades into a stunning piano interlude to lead the ending track, “My Argentina” into its final form. Letting his strengths close out the record, Baxter’s warm and raspy voice glides with a simple piano and richly-toned cello, marking a truly special ending.
Covering many large themes like death, love and spirituality, Baxter’s project stands as a worthy launch into the overwhelming journey of self-discovery. The genre-bending production held my interest for the duration of the album, heightening a curiosity for what’s next with each song. It appears that with the multitude of unique stylistic choices, Baxter wanted to venture into a more enigmatic body of sound. The attention to detail is impressively calculated in breaking through his typical folk scene as he embraces new and uncharted territory for himself. I do wish, though, that he dug deeper lyrically, but Baxter bit off a little more than he can chew in covering a handful of themes. His writing is vague and almost too interpretive but inspires most when trying the least, as it does in “Tadpole.” With this, the content glossed over the philosophical elements that he looked forward to uncovering in the title track, but thrived in timbre and sound. Rayland Baxter’s “If I Were A Butterfly” stretches far beyond his average works and illustrates a willfully thoughtful intention to seek the answers to life’s biggest questions through sound, a quality that I greatly admire. Baxter’s standout life experiences have clearly shaped his inquisitive spirit in his music, setting the bold statement that speaks to how adaptability in the face of change spurs variation and endurance. While Baxter wonders what his life would be like as a butterfly, there is one species that he certainly doesn’t pay any mind to – being a one-trick pony.
Caitlin Reardon is from Southampton, MA and is currently a journalism major at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Since she was little, Caitlin loved to write and developed a passion for it. Her parents instilled in her from a very young age the importance of music and its uniqueness. Intertwining her love for music with writing, she found a knack for music reviewing through The Daily Collegian where you can find some of her published journalistic works in news and arts. She is very excited to expand her platform to Overheard with The Earworm and is open to article requests on particular albums. You can reach her at caitlinreard@umass.edu or on Twitter @caitlinjreardon.
