On halfaworldaway, rock singer/songwriter Mike Farley came up with a batch of songs starting with one called "Can't Be Your Man" in which he expressed romantic ambivalence. Two years later, the narrator of the songs on his album Blue is no longer, as he puts it in "Way Back When," "play[ing] so hard to get." On the contrary, he's been gotten, but he has also, apparently, been dumped, hard. He has "17 Regrets" that he and his ex-paramour are "Sort of Strangers," and "Right Now" all he wants to do is "Fall" into her arms. As usual, Farley's complicated romantic sentiments are set to rock and folk-rock arrangements with catchy choruses and stinging lead guitar solos, and sung in his earnest, throaty tenor. In his current state of loneliness, he is less eloquent than he was when feigning indifference, falling back on plainspoken accounts of unhappiness and cliché. ("Take a look in my soul," he begins "In Your Heart," "Feel the pain in my eyes.") But that doesn't keep the heartfelt emotions from coming through clearly.
© William Ruhlmann /TiVo