There are plenty of reasons you’re going to get lost in the new music video for “Over For Good” by Jim Jacobs, but in my opinion, the biggest one is the strikingly well-synchronized shots and accompanying soundtrack. There’s nothing all that surreal about “Over For Good” – its lyrics, music, and video aren’t beholden to the indulgences that an alternative incarnation of this singer/songwriter would just as soon have designed an entire LP around – and yet the ironic simplicity in this visual piece, given the depth of the lyrics we’re listening to, is absolutely off the charts.
Compositional moxie has been everywhere you look and listen in the Nashville underground lately, but in the case of the new single and music video from Jim Jacobs, it’s being utilized to convey something entirely more focused and heartfelt than most of the content I’ve heard in the country community and beyond lately. All in all, this is one of the few indie cuts of this genre to grab my attention as the year comes to an end.
There isn’t a single instance within this song in which the harmony isn’t rumbling and setting forth a presence in the big picture that utterly forms the mood of the music – even when the guitar strings are injecting as much color as we can handle into the main verse. If you wanted to make the argument that the two elements are of equal importance to the narrative here, you wouldn’t have to do a lot of legwork to convince others of as much; aside from the joint attack of the vocals and gentle beat (which is devastatingly physical in its own right, all things considered), the aforementioned combo is the beefiest of any here.
I have a strong belief that Jacobs puts as much energy into making his music have a poetic punch as he does focusing on melodic components that would sell his overall sound well on the radio, and that’s nothing to scoff at these days. There’s a lot of contrast between what we find on the FM dial usually and what “Over For Good” is made of at its core, but that’s the whole point – in using power to make a point to us, Jim Jacobs reminds the whole world that size does matter when it comes to making incredible (and affective) country music.
There’s no debating that country has seen better times than the present, but if there’s one singer/songwriter in his scene looking to change this, it is Mr. Jim Jacobs. He doesn’t seem to put any stock in whether or not the establishment is going to agree with the ways and means of his sound and general aesthetic at all here; I learned in “Over For Good” that he is far more concerned with making a story relatable to the audience than he is trying to fit in with another artist’s concept of what country music is supposed to be in 2022 (or 2023, for that matter). The bottom line here? This cowboy is all about the music, and that matters this winter.
Mindy McCall
