The Thing That Poets Write About, The Thing That Singers Sing About

Bradley Hathaway:
This highly successful and imaginative underground poet—best known for his self-deprecating jaunts through scene culture and relationship failure—has taken on the task of self-marketing.

Hathaway is releasing his first solo album of music, The Thing That Poets Write About, The Thing That Singers Sing About, without a record label. Though folk in nature, this isn’t exactly what I would call run-of-the-mill from a sonic singer/songwriter standpoint.

What he lacks in vocal repertoire Hathaway more than makes up for with bravado, creativity, apropos subject matter and packaging value. In fact, the album tells the “fictitious” story of a man (I wonder who this might be?) who falls in love, asks the girl to marry him, then is turned down. The album, lighthearted on the first several tracks, becomes quite heavy as his character deals with loss and finding new faith in the process. The beauty of his perspective is that he has no fear in showing the vulnerability of rejection (something all of us have dealt with), without giving in to exercising despair and hopelessness.