Taste Test: Pete Mancini shares tale of homeless veteran with ‘Back to Bakersfield’
The roots-rocker swerves into bluegrass with a story song about a homeless veteran.
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You walk down any street in America, and you’ll likely come across a homeless person. It’s a plague owed to many things, one of which is the derelict, post-war veteran system. Combat soldiers return home from paying a heavy price, and they’re discarded to flop as airless fish on concrete. In his own reflections, roots-rock singer-songwriter Pete Mancini extracts his heart out of his chest for a traditional bluegrass tune honoring an abandoned, homeless veteran. With the sizzling “Back to Bakersfield,” which doesn’t skimp on the barbed lyricism, Mancini hands the reigns to a lost soul who may not have a voice otherwise. “I had planned on doing more / Here I am again, on the street again,” sings Mancini. There’s a detached, but troubled, iciness to his vocal cords, and that clash against an otherwise sprightly production cuts to exactly the point. We go about our lives without seeing the sorrow right before our eyes and choose not to doing anything. It’s time for change.
“Back to Bakersfield” samples Mancini’s new album, Flying First Class, out everywhere now.
Listen below:
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