An amazing work by an incredible young talent.

Paula Cole is an amazing talent, and an enduring artist. Her lyrics and instrumentation are very inspired, so when my son threatened to sell this CD from his collection, I gave him the purchase price and sent him away happy. I adore the song "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone"? She says what so many women feel, and the visuals I produce when I play her CD are colorful and imaginative.

"Where is my John Wayne? Where is my prairie son? Where is my happy ending? Where have all the cowboys gone?"

With those lyrics and that song she speaks eloquently for so many women, trapped in a marriages that offer dreary futures, yet seemed so romantic and full of promise when only seeing through the eyes of lust and love.

I love the song "Carmen," and the last track, "I Don't Want to Wait," as in "Cowboys" these tracks are sung in lower tones. I don't care as much for the more high pitched sounds as she sings "Mississippi", or "ME Feelin' Love". She almost sounds a little too shrill on these tracks, yet this demonstrates the incredible range of her voice and the amazing talent this young woman has been blessed with.

For fear of aging myself, Cole sounds to me a bit like a throatier Lani Hall or a young Karla Bonoff, who's albums I pull out of storage and play once or twice a year, as I work to conserve the ever disappearing needle on our antique called a "Record Player."

For both of the albums I own of these artists are enduring, like "This Fire" the lyrics reach into the depth of the artist and make you want to listen, again and again, taking you back to the place you were when you originally bought that artist's work, helping you remember, and taking you back to that time that once was.