Mary Gauthier - Rifles & Rosary Beads

2018 release, the 10th album from the folk singer/songwriter. Rifles and Rosary Beads is a collection of songs by Mary Gauthier, co-written with U.S. veterans and their families, through Songwriting With Soldiers, a non-profit organization that pairs US veterans with professional songwriters. These songs are a glimpse inside the hearts and souls of both male and female soldiers, and their spouses. The eleven deeply personal songs on this album reveal the untold stories, and powerful struggles that these veterans deal with abroad and after returning home. Each song on Rifles and Rosary Beads is a gut punch: deceptively simple and emotionally complex. From the opening "Soldiering On" ("What saves you in the battle/Can kill you at home") to "Bullet Holes in the Sky" ("They thank me for my service/And wave their little flags/They genuflect on Sundays/And yes, they'd send us back"), to the abject horror of "Iraq," and it's quiet depiction of a female mechanic's rape, each song tells the story of a deeply wounded veteran.