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Phil Vassar, “Everywhere I Go”

September 3, 2009 Tara Seetharam 2

PhilVSomewhere underneath “Everywhere I Go” is a great song, but to find it, you have to dig a little too deep. The song’s pleasing melody and bittersweet lyrics –Vassar sings of haunting, lingering memories of a lost love– are coated with layers of dramatic, distracting production. Even the conviction Vassar brings to the song starts to feel slightly artificial when he pushes his vocals over the top in the chorus, the most off-putting aspect of the song.

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Phil Vassar, "Bobbi with an I"

May 21, 2009 Leeann Ward 32

I’ve had to listen to this song several times just to be sure it was real and not just an insane figment of my imagination. But alas, whether I like it or not, it is real and I’m the one who has been charged with the task of attributing words from the English language to this strange composition, which suddenly seems limiting. So, please excuse my casual tone just this once, because I’m going to have to forgo the formal conventions of a review in order to even come close to adequately describing this song.

“Bobby With an I” is about a cross dresser. Bobby is a man’s man during the week, but he turns into Bobbi when the work week is through. He makes such a convincing woman that “you better watch how much you drink/He might look better than you think.” Right.

Despite how others may feel about the somewhat subversive topic, it is actually a redeeming quality of the song. While it’s treated very lightly here, it is still likely to offend the sensibilities of some disapproving country music listeners. However, what offends my sensibilities is the execution of the song in general.

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Phil Vassar, “I Would”

July 3, 2008 Leeann Ward 3

Phil Vassar’s, “I Would” kicks off with up-tempo piano and fiddles. In fact, the whole song moves at a pretty fast clip. The problem with this is that the supposed regret of the lyrics isn’t

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