Exene Cervenka The Excitement of Maybe

"These are falling, loving, singing, crying, travelling songs, fitting together like a perfect scrapbook of emotion. The musical arrangements are beautiful, but it’s Exene’s voice keeping these songs haunting your mind." --The Big Takeover

"It’s hard to pick out songs that stand out as this is a rare album in that there is no weakness to the material; it is sequenced perfectly and burrows deep into one’s consciousness to form a lasting imprint on the mind.  This is a beautiful album, resplendent with a sound that is almost impossible not to enjoy, lyrics that beat at your heart and with a sense of feeling that love is always with us in one form or another, for good or bad. I can see me enjoying this album years from now as much, if not more, than I do now."--punknews.org

"Ain't love grand! Exene follows a romance from giddy infatuation to disillusioning dissolution, hitching her narrative and angelic cowpunk vocals to a musical canvas that fittingly evolves from sunny roots pop to feisty rock. Grand indeed. " -- Jam Showbiz

"Exene’s poetic genius is always at her finger tips but stands out especially  on tracks like the melancholic ballad ‘Alone In Arizona’ and ‘Someday I’ll Forget’ " --Bust

Life has its own built-in forms of emotional and creative inertia. And while some people experience a gradual falling off of whatever it is that makes them unique and vibrant, that doesn’t seem to be the case with Exene Cervenka. The 54 year-old singer/songwriter’s life work has been all about constructing, deconstructing, persevering, and building back up again with new creative adjustments. Sometimes a broken bone leads to a strengthening of the rest of the body.

The Excitement of Maybe is the next chapter. Maybe it’s the one that follows the run-in with an unexpected adventure, where the simplicity of real life seems more attractive than even the most exotic of circumstances. Throughout the album is Exene’s characteristic blend of folk, deep country and poppy, wide open spaces. Tracks like “Already In Love” swell with an uplifting punch of horn lines, Dave Alvin (The Blasters, X) on electric guitar, and the soulful undertone of a Hammond Organ. Other players on the album include oft-used jazz bassist Christian McBride (Diana Krall, Chick Corea, Sting) and Maggie Björklund

The album brings together the potential and innocence of young love, the gravity of departure, and the symbolic changing of seasons. “Dirty Snow” draws comparison to the “dirty snow of Oklahoma” to a leaving lover, as Exene coos, “wait until I can forget/baby please don’t leave me yet.” Björklund’s swooning pedal steel guitar and Jessy Greene’s mournful violin arrangement of “Beyond You” emote two individuals
holding on while crossing their fingers for better luck ahead. And really, who hasn’t teetered in a relationship thinking: Will this work?...should I stay?...I know there’s better times around the corner.

“I listened to love songs on the AM radio in our old 1959 Dodge,” Exene recalls.
“In the early sixties I heard great song after great song. Ray Price, The Shirelles, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Brenda Lee, Ray Charles. And almost all of them love songs. Sad ones, happy ones, funny ones, tragic ones. That’s what five year-
old Exene figured out. But love, on the other hand, I can’t ever seem to figure out.”