On 10 years of “Handwritten”
The Gaslight Anthem’s fourth album may not be their best-known, but its a classic in its own right
In 2018, the Gaslight Anthem announced a reunion tour in support of their second album, The 59 Sound. This wasn’t a full-on reunion for the band that had gone on hiatus after releasing 2014’s Get Hurt, but it was a nod to the fan support and adulation that surrounded their most loved music. It was a great move.
In 2022, the Gaslight Anthem is officially back on tour and planning new music of some kind. In other words, the band is back for real, at least for now. But 2022 is also the 10-year anniversary of another Gaslight Anthem record, one that occupies a space in my personal music library that’s almost as hallowed as that of The 59 Sound, even if most others don’t see it that way.
2012’s Handwritten may not have quite the appeal or legacy of The 59 Sound, but it’s an incredible accomplishment on its own. On the 10th anniversary of this project, as the band that wrote it reunifies, I’d like to take a few paragraphs to explain my love for it.
The 59 Sound was followed by 2010’s American Slang, an album that was perfectly fine in every way, but lacked the emotional spark of its predecessor. In 2012, with Handwritten, the Gaslight Anthem found that spark again. The album starts out with “45,” a song filled with optimism and joy about growing up and older. It’s the perfect opening track to an album — it amps up the excitement and flows perfectly into the next one.
As the album continues, “Handwritten” and “Here Comes my Man” slow the tempo and allow Brian Fallon’s voice and lyrics to shine a little more. From these three songs, Handwritten the album feels like a spiritual successor to The 59 Sound much more than American Slang did. I can’t really even pinpoint why, but I think it’s some combination of Fallon’s vocals and the production. Everything sounds more cohesive in Handwritten than in the album right before it.
From there, listeners will find plenty more worth listening to. “Howl,” “Biloxi Parish” and “Desire” all feature interesting guitar hooks and the signature Gaslight Anthem sound. They may not have achieved the classic status as their counterparts on The 59 Sound, but on a technical level these songs are all just as good. I remember hearing some of these during lead-ins to commercial breaks during sporting events in 2012.
However, the real reason to listen to this album comes at the end: “Mae,” “National Anthem,” and “Blue Dahlia” (which is inexplicably only in the deluxe edition of the album but still absolutely essential) complete the best three-song run that the Gaslight Anthem has ever written. “Mae” is a tender love song carried by Fallon’s vocals. It soars into a dramatic finish that would be an excellent end to the album itself, if not for what comes immediately after.
“National Anthem” is even more stripped-down, built only on Fallon’s vocals and a picked acoustic guitar. It’s a reflection on aging and growth, filled with beautiful lines like “Now everybody lately is living up in space, Flying through transmissions on invisible airwaves, With everything discovered just waiting to be known.” Nods to the Information Age sounded insightful in 2012; in 2022 they’re downright prescient.
But the star of the album is “Blue Dahlia.” It’s a roaring closer, an epic, cathartic explosion of sound that I’ve listened to hundreds (maybe thousands) of times in the intervening years. It’s about finding love after years of heartbreak, joy after despair, and hope in the face of bad memories. I can’t imagine the possible reasons that kept this song off the album proper, but fortunately it’s easily accessible on streaming services today.
Handwritten justifiably lacks the reputation of The 59 Sound, but it’s an amazing album on its own that sometimes speaks to me more than any other music released by this band. Now that the Gaslight Anthem are back, I hope to see even more music come my way from them. But if their catalog is incomplete (which I doubt, and which Fallon has said is not the case), I’m thankful that I’ll always have this album.
The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.
