Most debut albums start with a plan. Sometimes started with a leak. Dallas Green, guitarist and vocalist of the post-hardcore band Alexisonfire, had been writing quiet acoustic songs on the side, and fans were passing them around through peer-to-peer networks or catching them live. The demand grew loud enough that the songs had to be gathered and released. On November 1, 2005, that collection arrived in Canada as Sometimes, the first studio album from Green's solo project City and Colour.
Recording Sometimes with Julius Butty
The record came out on Dine Alone Records, and it was the first City and Colour release in that label's catalogue. Green produced the album with Julius Butty, who also engineered most of the songs and mixed the record. The music inside was a sharp turn from Alexisonfire's aggressive sound: ten tracks of acoustic folk, recorded over 2004 and 2005. For many listeners, it was the first time they could hear these songs properly, outside a club or a file-sharing download. Brett Zilhali handled mastering at Joao Carvalho Mastering, giving the ten acoustic tracks their final shape. Four of the songs were recorded by engineer Larry Thompson at a friend's house, away from a conventional studio. The album was later made available on CD and through streaming services.
Only one track, Comin' Home, had never been available to listeners before. The other nine had circulated in rougher forms, which is exactly why the album existed. Green did not set out to make a grand statement; he answered a demand. That demand turned into a single, Save Your Scissors, released in 2005, and another, Comin' Home, the following year. The album went gold in Canada in March 2006.
Song Titles and Literary Borrowings
The songs carried personal history. Sam Malone was one of the first compositions Green wrote as a teenager, named after the bartender from the television series Cheers. It also borrowed a few lines from Where No One Knows, a track from Alexisonfire's debut album. The closing song, Sometimes (I Wish), ran six minutes and gave the record its title in reverse, a slow acoustic finish to a collection built from spare guitar and voice. The third track, Hello, I'm in Delaware, took its title from a line in the 1992 film Wayne's World, which starred Canadian Mike Myers. Another song, In the Water I Am Beautiful, borrowed its name from the foreword to Kurt Vonnegut's collection Welcome to the Monkey House. Publications such as Punknews.org and Melodic praised the record. The cover art was directed and designed by Garnet, with Scott McEwan credited as the tattoo artist in the packaging. The album also became the first studio work in the City and Colour catalogue.
The album's success surprised the industry. In 2007, Sometimes won a Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year, a recognition that a side project from a hardcore guitarist had become something more. By then, the record had already proven its reach: a 2009 reissue on Vagrant Records made the physical album available in the United States for the first time, expanding the audience beyond Canada.
What made Sometimes work was its honesty. Green recorded vocal and guitar parts himself, keeping the arrangements uncluttered. The album followed the 2004 EP Missing, but it was the first full-length statement for City and Colour. Where Alexisonfire shouted, this project whispered. Fans who had traded the songs online now had them in one place, and the songs held up.
The story of Sometimes is not one of careful branding. It is the story of songs that refused to stay private. They slipped out through the internet, found an audience at live shows, and eventually forced their own release. A debut album born from demand, not design, turned Dallas Green's acoustic side project into a lasting name in folk music.
They slipped out through the internet, found an audience at live shows, and eventually forced their own release.