10 Best Josh Rouse Songs

Singer-songwriter Josh Rouse was born in the small town of Oshkosh, Nebraska. He moved often as a child, due to his father’s military career. His first record, Dressed Up Like Nebraska, was released in 1998.

But Rouse’s sweet voice and gentle songs often sound like they belong to an earlier era. Sometimes he’s reminiscent of Paul Simon, with his light voice and insightful writing.

Rouse’s early work was serious and introspective. Over his first five albums, he built up to his career peak Nashville. Rouse’s peak coincided with me exhausting the obvious classic rock canon, and tuning in to newer music. Rouse’s retro-tinged and accomplished writing was a great bridge into newer music for me.

After Nashville, Rouse relocated to Spain, and his music became sunnier and more relaxed. His later songs are still tuneful but don’t always carry the same emotional weight as his early work. Accordingly, this list concentrates on his work from 2000-2005, but a few later highlights slipped in too.

10 Best Josh Rouse Songs

#10 Winter in the Hamptons

from Nashville, 2005
Rouse was an Anglophile in his adolescence, a fan of 1980s British bands like The Cure and The Smiths. The latter make their influence felt here. ‘Winter in the Hamptons’ recalls the jangly rush of Johnny Marr’s layered guitars. I’m not sure if Rouse is singing in character, but “The government, they’re all liars” is an uncharacteristically direct line.

‘Winter in the Hamptons’ comes from my favourite Rouse album Nashville. It would have been nice to fit in even more cuts from it onto this list.

#9 Tropic Moon

from Love in the Modern Age, 2018
In 2003 Rouse released 1972, a 1970s-flavoured album named for the year of his birth. Fifteen years later, Love in the Modern Age delves into a 1980s sound, inspired by Prefab Sprout and The Blue Nile.

Accordingly, ‘Tropic Moon‘ has a 1980s sheen. But it would have fitted nicely into any other Rouse project with its pretty tune and acoustic guitar strum.

#8 The Ocean

from The Happiness Waltz, 2013
Rouse released a lot of breezy music between 2006 and 2011. Despite its name, The Happiness Waltz returns some of the melancholy of Rouse’s early work. In particular, ‘The Ocean’ has a foreboding, dream-like quality, with pretty guitars and searching lyrics.

#7 Hollow Moon

from Going Places, 2022
A quarter century into his recording career, Rouse is still making good music. At the time of writing, Going Places was Rouse’s most recent studio album. Recorded during the 2020 COVID pandemic, Rouse wrote the songs to be performed with a small band at his friend’s nightclub.

‘Hollow Moon’ is pretty, with a breezy chorus and a great sax hook. Rouse explained that “it sounded somewhere between J.J. Cale and Fairport Convention, until I had Jim Hoke put some saxes on it and it became something else entirely. A barbecue strummer!””

#6 It Looks Like Love

from Subtitulo, 2006
Rouse divorced (see the next song on the list) and remarried in the mid-2000s. ‘It Looks Like Love’ captures Rouse falling in love with his second wife, Paz Suay, a summery, sugary confection.

Rouse to Spain and lost some of the angst that fuelled his earlier songs – indeed the key line is ‘There goes that melancholy feelin’ again.” Rouse’s voice sounds great on the high notes, and there’s an attention-grabbing first line.

#5 My Love Has Gone

from Nashville, 2005
Nashville was a farewell from Rouse to his adopted city and to his first marriage. ‘My Love Has Gone’ feels like the emotional heart of the album. A melancholy Rouse sings lines like “And I sleep with the TV on/It’s the only sound, our love’s gone.” ‘My Love Has Gone’ is simple musically, but it’s effective.

#4 Marvin Gaye

from Home, 2000
It’s hard to know why Rouse titled this track ‘Marvin Gaye’. It’s not particularly soulful, and there’s no mention of the soul legend in the lyrics. It’s probably the most upbeat track from Rouse’s early records, ending with the affirming “you are a star”.

Rouse’s songwriting gifts had already emerged on his second album, with other strong tracks like ‘Directions’ and ‘Parts and Accessories’.

#3 Christmas With Jesus

from Under Cold Blue Stars, 2002
There are tons of Christmas songs released by secular artists. But usually, they’re second-rate tunes that get flogged on festive radio anyway. The Sunday Post claims that Paul McCartney wrote ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ in 10 minutes and Wikipedia has its recording date as a single day (30 August 1979) – efficient for a song that’s reportedly raked in $15,000,000.

Conversely, ‘Christmas With Jesus’ isn’t aimed at supermarket Christmas airplay. Instead, it’s mournful and introspective. There are a few good morose Christmas songs – Joni Mitchell’s ‘River’ and Prince’s ‘Another Lonely Christmas’ are better-known examples. ‘Christmas With Jesus’ is an introspective song that explores an unusual issue; Christmas as a couple when only one partner is a believer.

#2 Sad Eyes

from Nashville, 2005
‘Sad Eyes’ is a big piano ballad – it reminds me a little of Paul McCartney’s big piano songs. It takes a while to get going, but the climax is euphoric. There’s a great middle eight (“took a lot of tears”, which is then layered onto the final chorus. It’s a grand conclusion to a comfortingly melancholy ballad.

#1 Come Back (Light Therapy)

from 1972, 2003
Rouse’s fourth album recreates the sounds of his birth year. It recalls James Taylor, Carole King, and Curtis Mayfield, full of flute leads and mellow grooves.

‘Come Back (Light Therapy)’ is a love song to the sun. In the middle eight, Rouse comes in with a beautiful falsetto, singing “I miss my seratonin”. ‘Come Back’ is driven by a mellow bass groove.

Did I leave out your favourite Josh Rouse song?

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