Born in 1990 in Kentucky, Ian Noe is an American singer and songwriter specialized in folk and country music. His Extended Play, Off this Mountaintop was the beginning of his career but it’s with his first album, Between the Country, released in 2019, that he started to become successful. In this album, Noe deals with dark themes like addiction as in
Methhead and even death as in Letter to Madeline .
Listening to Letter to Madeline, feels as if we were traveling through Eastern Kentucky with the singer. From the first guitare chords and the first lyrics of the song describing a bank robber getting caught in the cold hills of his town Ian Noe manages to sing with hopelessness and melancholia with a really plaintive and emotional voice.
« Looked like a hundred guns held on me
Hunkered by the shed of Detroit General & Company ».
The setting is incredibly well presented in the song and the singer is brilliant at depicting the sadness surrounding the region he lived in.
« Hoping that the burden of my blues would lift And praying that the whiskey would keep me brave »
More than a song Letter to Madeline feels like a realistic tale as if Ian Noe wanted to share with us the story of the community he grew up in.
No surprise it is our favorite song at Travelody’s.
If you loved this song we recommend you the singer Brent Cobb who plays the same genre of music.