Link copied
“I’ve lost friends and I’ve lost heroes. I lost everything I am, even my name,” the artist formerly known as Sturgill Simpson intones at the top of ‘Who I Am’, a relatably despairing and yet deceptively jaunty number from his latest effort, Passage Du Desir.
The singer-songwriter recently traded in what has become a widely celebrated moniker in the world of country music for a shiny new model, presenting this current album as both a clean slate and an eight-track introduction to his new alias, Johnny Blue Skies.
Throughout ‘Who I Am’, which shuffles in midway through Passage Du Desir, the singer-songwriter croons about going through changes. He finds clarity and comfort in knowing that such shifts are the only constant in this life. Still, the artist thanks God that “They don’t ask you what your name is when you get up to heaven ... I couldn’t tell Her if I had to who I am”.
Upon initial listen, this may alert the ear to some kind of identity crisis—because, honestly, who the hell is this Johnny Blue Skies guy, and what has he done with our Sturgill?!—however, this change was inevitable, written on the wall well before the aforementioned ‘Who I Am’ and Passage Du Desir.
In reality, Simpson only promised us five albums under his legal name. Barring the bluegrass projects, Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 1 and Vol. 2., from 2020, he fulfilled his oath, gifting fans a striking debut in High Top Mountain (2013), the game-changing Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (2014), the widely acclaimed A Sailor’s Guide to Earth (2016), the hefty boogie-rocker Sound & Fury (2019) and the sharpshooting narrative record The Ballad of Dood and Juanita (2021).
Upon the release of the latter, the artist began hinting at an impending creative shift, detailing to Rolling Stone: “Going forward, I’d like to form a proper band with some people who I really love and respect musically, and be a part of something truly democratic in terms of creativity”. He explained that perhaps shrugging off the burdenous weight of his name “would allow me to be even more vulnerable, in a way”.
These onerous feelings surrounding his mounting celebrity had not arisen with The Ballad of Dood and Juanita; rather, they had likely been weighing on him for nearly a decade.
When the artist released his sophomore opus Metamodern Sounds in Country Music in 2014—the genre-disrupting record celebrated its tenth anniversary with a reissued edition last month—he seemed to foresee the fate of Sturgill Simpson even then. As the landmark album perked more ears to the musician’s otherworldly artistry, there came whispers of a savior come to redeem country music and Simpson was soon placed on too high a pedestal, one he neither wanted nor understood.
“I don’t need that pressure,” the artist told the same publication back in 2014, just weeks after Metamodern would be heralded as the answer to the genre’s prayers. “And what does that even really mean?” He didn’t set out to save anything, explaining, “I just try to do what I believe in and, more importantly, wake up in 20 or 30 years and still feel proud. These records may be the only semblance of who I actually was someday, to anybody that gives a shit”.
Simpson would be faithfully deemed country’s liberator with each subsequent release, applauded for a style some regarded as “outlaw” and admired for a liberalism that had previously seemed stifled in the genre. With his muscular, time-tattered sound, he regularly drew comparisons to Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard, while barely dodging diagnoses of the prophetic due to his heady references to space and time.
Maybe the mythos began to shadow the man, the music no longer distinguishable through all the sycophantic praise. He informed Rolling Stone all the way back in those Metamodern days: “I don’t know where I fit in, but I do know that when I figure it out, it ain’t going to be because somebody else did it for me.” Maybe, in the end, all there was left to do was leave.
If you came to Passage Du Desir in search of Sturgill Simpon, sure, you’ll find parts of him. In sound and substance, the album echoes the artist—his sobering croon dazzles against the simplicity of ‘Mint Tea’, his sincere words sparking in the depths of ‘Jupiter’s Faerie’—but a particular lightness permeates the record, a weightlessness that could only come from a fresh start.
Instead, you’ll become acquainted with Mr. Blue Skies, just a cosmos-gazing, scooter-riding, chocolate milk-making dude. He may nod to Simpson’s departure in Passage Du Desir, lilting aboard a newly unanchored vessel in the whimsical ‘Swamp of Sadness’ and the beginnings that are so naturally born from ends in the sensual ‘If the Sun Never Rises Again’, but he also introduces himself plainly throughout, filling our ears with a newfound wonder and hard-won ease.
You’ll meet the carefree character in tunes like ‘Right Kind of Dream’, a punchy track fueled by ‘80s rhythms and “lovestruck magic”, and ‘Scooter Blues’, a breezy epic that finds him trading a mower for a moped and spending his days boating, beaching or simply going down to the store. It’s a montage of tasks that seem so civilian for a once venerated man, but as he sings in the song, “When people say, ‘Are you him?’, I’ll say, ‘Not anymore’”.
Of course, fans and followers will project whatever they want onto this new moniker, assigning a few meaningless words—like these very ones— to some idea of who Johnny Blue Skies is, who he should be and what he isn’t. However, this moon-eyed music man already seems content with who and where he is, untethered from the weight of Sturgill Simpson, guided by nothing more than his own direction and unbothered by the rest.
Over the last decade or so, Simpson has no doubt shaped the country music of today, sonically, thematically, and otherwise. Now, it’s Johnny Blue Skies’ turn.
For more on Johnny Blue Skies & Sturgill Simpson, see below:
