Only Half Blue is the Sunday morning album that you never knew you needed. The latest 9-track album from Halifax singer-songwriter Cassie Josephine gives listeners the perfect opportunity to relax and picture themselves in a coffee shop listening to this album along with Jack Johnson’s melodies and Michael Buble’s soft jazz. The album is the folk-music version of a cup of coffee when you have time to sip and enjoy it; it’s warm and meditative.
Only Half Blue is a reflection. Josephine wrote this album just before her fortieth birthday and the lyrics are a road trip down memory lane as well as an appreciation of her life so far.
Her journey begins in her first track, “Come What May,” when Cassie takes the “bus from Sydney to Halifax” and her mom picks her up at the Circle K. From there, the album consists of contemplations of a younger love, young life and “flashbacks that go so far back it’s frightening.”
Through a simple mix of slow melodies guided by guitars and accompanied by fiddles and keyboards, she talks of returning home, good memories with friends and lessons learned in youth. In “Large One Cream and a Honey Cruller,” she sits “staring into the abyss of the Young Street Tim’s”—just another “stopping place” on her journey.
“You can take the girl out of the country, but you leave her with these tear-jerking memories,” she sings.
Listeners get to know Josephine on a personal level in “Dear Cassie,” where Josephine seems to give an account of her life in detail. She went to art school, dropped university for a boy in the city and sold soap for a regular payday.
In “Hot Pink Lipstick,” she comments on the signs she notices of her age, but rises up against her insecurities.
“I am a woman. Hear me roar,” she sings.
“I’ll show the world my superpower.”
This album is a diary of a sort. The type one would write on their fortieth birthday. Because of that, it appears she wrote and recorded this album as a truthful account of her years. An account not necessarily meant for the audience, but whose uncensored honesty makes it good.
The other message of the album is a promise to be better. It’s a power anthem for herself and other women who feel age creeping up on them. It’s a reminder to let go and move forward.
Only Half Blue is Josephine’s reflection on her life. Sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it was beautiful, but she wouldn’t change a thing.
It’s worth a listen, especially if you feel age and time creeping up on you on a Sunday morning.