I have little idea what most of the songs on Burlap to Cashmere's self-titled 2010 album mean, but it doesn't mean they're not memorable. Out of the blue, in a restaurant or from the back seat of the car, my son may sing "I will ride my bus" and my daughter echo "my bus," and the song "Digee Dime" is summoned (oops, sorry, that's from their 1998 album, "Anybody Out There?") and that unforgettable chorus, "digee dime, digee dime, digee dime," rings out, which, whatever it means, we love. Or there is my wife's favorite profundity from (it seems like) several of their songs, Steven Delopoulos's "hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey," her less robust version issuing forth when I least expect. Or there's that great line from "Orchestrated Love Song, the wistful "I wanna live on a boat and sail away with my children," once again sung by daughter, and we all nod inwardly in agreement. It's like a shared lexicon, shorthand album-speak --- one quip, one phrase, and the entire song, the entire album is conjured up. Their music has become a sonic appendage to our family life, shared space.
I don't know if it's because I love Greek food or have been to Greece and want to go back again. But I agree wholeheartedly with this appraisal. I also don't know if Steven Delopoulos is as good a songwriter as Bob Dylan, but he's a far better stylist. No more gifted singer-songwriter has emerged in the past two decades — and the gift here has much to do with an uncanny knack for living up to the name of the group, a knack for taking the common and rendering it precious, a knack for taking raw, sere burlap and conditioning it into perfectly smooth cashmere that envelopes the soul ...
"God of light, light me some passion
Green fields and lovely mansions
Let your mansions live inside me
Love me, light me, give me, guide me ..."
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