Last year around this time I posted a song-by-song consideration of Lucinda Williams’ latest album, The Ghosts of Highway 20. It wasn’t exactly applauded by my regular readers, though I did get at least one staunch Williams fan defending me.

That defense came in a comment on a song by another favorite artist of mine, Tift Merritt, and earlier in the thread the same person broke the news that Merritt would release a new album in early 2017.

Well, here we are, and here it is. Merritt’s Stitch of the World has hit shelves (or hard drives) and in a nice bit of symmetry, I’ve chosen to dedicate the next two weeks to an appreciation of its ten tracks.

I suspect the Lucinda Williams haters will have an easier go of it this time around, as Tift Merritt’s voice is far less of an acquired taste. Merritt hasn’t enjoyed widespread popularity but her music is easy listening in the most generous interpretation of that phrase.

Stitch of the World was written and recorded during a tumultuous time in Merritt’s personal life, including a divorce and pregnancy. Like my two favorite albums of last year, Miranda Lambert’s The Weight of These Wings and Beyoncé’s Lemonade, it is about emotional perseverance and the scars that make us who we are.

Opening track ‘Dusty Old Man’ is one of the few up-tempo songs on the album. It’s a grungy blues stomp about the merits of a man who’s lived a little.