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The Billie Burke Estate | Let Your Heart Break (Self-released, 2008) Just look at the cover, will you? A camera lens is turned sideways on a child, who is wrapped in drapes. The lens cuts her off just below her shoulders, her red stocking feet still, just grazing the wood floor. Where is she?

Perhaps she is in the same limbo as the Billie Burke Estate's main man Andy Liotta, who is pictured in mid-jump on the cover of 2005's Give It All Away, his arms keeping him afloat above the grass, his bare feet arranged in some mock morse code contemplation, the bottom of his shirt slightly raised and bloated as he prepares to come back down to earth.

These things are very important when trying to decipher the meaning of Liotta's lyrics, at the beating heart of both Give It All Away and the brand-new, revelatory Let Your Heart Break. There seems always to be a piece of the puzzle that the Seattle-ite leaves untethered, a sliver of the connecting tissue that gives the listener the whole story. Which seems appropriate, given that the emotions Liotta turns inside out on this extraordinary record are too complex, really, to grab hold of in the confines of an emotional bear hug. This is real life, set to pop melodies to die for, both happy and sad, which is a fair approximation of how the songs, interconnected and not, play out.

At the bottom of the CD's inner tri fold is the connecting tissue: the naked phrase "over and over" repeated over and over and over again, because that is how life affords you your opportunities, over and over and over again until you get it right. Thus, it is fair, I think, to characterize the characters populating "99 Liberty Lane," this album's blazingly endearing leadoff track, as living in that moment, as limbs and sternums rolling, shifting positions in an interconnected apartment house as their lives play out in seemingly innocent playlets, one over at a time.

The details of the comings and goings of the inhabitants of "99 Liberty Lane" are dealt with in sonically pointed strokes, which is to intimate that headphones are necessary to get the full aural effect even if all you can manage is your stereo speakers set to stun. Against an infectious 4/4 melodic piano foundation, Liotta's commanding vocal runs through the lives of the people who make the building they live in come alive. These are people seriously committed to staying alive, and Liotta describes them in living, liquid terms.

Listen to how Liotta skillfully posits the situation in apartment 12-C, where Sheri is "focused as can be" as "'The Sopranos' mask her moans" and "after three nights fishing only catching a cold, she boldly goes it alone. She freezes at the bangbang knock on her door, it’s the pizza man off by a floor, a soft porn set-up if ever there was, but Sheri closes her eyes, Carmella wants more." Sheri's path is circuitous, and a living nightmare in which a fictional character worms her way into a, well, real person's life. As only Liotta could tell it.

It's masterful, how the singer accentuates these characters' movements: the keyboard player who "hauls her axe up the stairs,   cuz the elevator’s stuck up above," as Liotta plays a rudimentary ascending scale on the piano, approximating each step; the sudden, crunching silence that underlines the doorman as he turns off his TV, and Liotta's naked vocal cries "he suddenly feels alone."

Liotta's characters are often essayed beginning at the point at which they are just short of achieving their goals. Framed by well-crafted pure pop structures and melodies that sink in deep, their narratives reveal just enough about them to give listeners something to chew on, to help them to decipher the lives of these near-misses that are buoyed by lost souls.

The character in the bouncy, should be hit-bound "I Want U" questions why he can't connect with the object of his affection and, seemingly unable to do so, lets himself off the hook by telling himself "It's okay." In "Perky Muscle Girl," a guy lusts after the object of his affections without actually making contact with her (a bittersweet Beach Boys vocal part evokes a spine twinge to seal the deal).

Similarly, the quartet of people who populate one of the album's centerpieces, the many-layered, aptly heartbreaking "Dreams Come True," all strive to slay the dragons that fell lesser-timbered show biz wannabes, but all end up hanging on to the slightest of hopes, if at all. Danny Dillon get the girls--"He was welcome in their jeans," Liotta sings--but still is resigned to playing for stragglers in local bars. Poor Samantha Luce, unable to "reach the screen, like they do in the magazines," finds herself laid barren, down in the depths of the adult film industry. Sportsman Curtis Cole blows out his knee, works to heal, but is left with his chances of a comeback being "none to slim." And Billie Shears hits number one on the charts with her appropriately-named song "I Can Float," only to fall from grace "...with a needle in her arm." Liotta's music is played in classic, melodic pop style, hitting all the highs and lows of his characters with appropriate tempo and emotional changes.

As much as Liotta's characters suffer, they at least seem to forge on in the hopes of gaining even the slightest ground. Not so, however, in the truly heartbreaking "Little Maisy," in which a little girl dies, not having an ounce of fortitude or a sliver of strength in her little body to ward off her death. Her father, sad beyond all compare, simply cries "Make it go away." Talk about heartbreaking. Liotta's tune, punctuated by plaintive, soft backing vocals, is equal parts celebration of a short life and certain sadness. The music grounds the song with a three-dimensional soundscape, so effective it is at making its point.

What I absolutely love about Liotta's writing is his ability to draw empathy from listeners as he springs his tales of woe tempered with even the smallest glimmer of hope. In the happy, poppy "Everybody's Gonna Die," the pulse of life is played out in Liotta's bass line, in his examination of the path of existence. Really, it's quite simple, when he sings: "You can love, you can hate, You can hurry, you can hesitate, Don’t worry, you can never be late to the end and it’s better if you bring a friend."

A sense of humor, then? Everybody's gonna die, whether "Stanley thin or Oliver round" (silent comedy fans stand tall!). Perhaps that is the most poignant, heartbreaking lesson to take away from this tremendous song cycle, played with superb musicianship by multi-instrumentalist Liotta and drummer Zak Schaffer, whose sticks are integral to these proceedings: You're going to go, friend, so you might as well try to ring a little sunshine out of the muck and the mire along the way.

Indeed, you can, and should, hang onto the childlike wonder that keeps the getting-older youthful, as in the buoyant, upbeat "I Can Float." "In imagination the truth is found," sings Liotta. And isn't that the truth?

It's a yin-and-yang fest, this life, with a whole lot of pushing and pulling taking center stage. Are you a pusher, or are you a puller? Ah, the push and the pull, as evidenced in the aggressive, rocky, ultimate I-hate-you-but-I-hate-me-more song, "Like I See You": "Nobody ever loved me the way you let me down. You crank up the circus music and make me play the clown. You’re holding me underwater and asking me to breath, you’re begging me please don’t go, while you’re asking me to leave. Nobody ever loved you the way I ran away, I’m pushing you out the door and I'm begging you to stay." And then: "Please stay…" Because the push and pull might just be worth it.

Alan Haber
February 4, 2008

Go to: The Billie Burke Estate