“Man, you just can't get much cooler than me and my friend, Darlene.”
- Shawn Mullins/The Ballad of Billy Joe McKay
Today is the birthday of singer/songwriter Shawn Mullins, born in Atlanta, GA in 1968. He grew up in Clarkston, GA where he was friends in high school with Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls.
Most people, if they're familiar with him at all, would know him from his late nineties hit song, Lullaby. I suppose you could call him a one-hit wonder, but he's continued making music and surviving, it seems.
Lullaby is the kind of song I think anyone who writes songs would like to have written. It has a story about a pretty but sad and lonely girl unsure of her place in the world. The lyrics do what the good ones often do, connect the specific to the universal. It also has a memorable hook which, well, all songs hope to have.
As good as Lullaby is, it's not my favorite of his. That one is called The Ballad of Billy Joe McKay - It's the story of a teenage boy who just turned 16, growing up in a hardscrabble Mississippi small town, with a less than perfect home life, longing to escape as soon as he can. It's a fine piece of work.