Julia McDougall's latest EP, "I Don't Really Care," is a work that's mostly misleading. The Canadian songwriter is just being facetious with many of the matters that are most important to her. It's always better not to care about the hard to hold, tough to wrangle stuff because then it's so much easier to dismiss away when it's all in the dumps and struggling mightily to get out of them. It's always so much easier to pretend that you're not supposed to be worried or concerned about the important stuff. It can be amusing and very comforting to just convince oneself that you're just too damned young to be worried about such things. You've got your whole life to live and it's foolish to think that time's ever going to be an enemy.
McDougall has written a batch of songs that are tied together by an overriding thought that there's a lot to look forward to and it's all going to be had - someday. This includes a garden. It includes revenge and it includes a peace of mind that's nowhere to be found currently. It could just be that revenge and peace of mind do not consult with the younger of us. We hold them more closely as we get up there in years, when we care about how we've led our lives and not just what we've gotten ourselves into today, or this week. The hours that we lay waste to as someone with big eyes can be gathered back up later on, down the road, when forgiveness, hurt and laughter can once again be bedfellows.
These characters dream of the day when they'll have that garden full of flowers, a house full of babies to console after nightmares and a husband that will make their sisters cry because he's just so damned great. These characters have their sights set on that nebulous future that is all things and nothing and maybe that's where the aloofness could rear its head. When you're staring into a wildness of everything and nothing, how can you stop yourself from just glazing right over? It's all out there for the pickin', but it's all a lot of work to harvest it, so we prolong the harvest. The garden will lay idle, with the flowers "hanging their pale heads low." Someday will be here someday. Whatever.