Aaron Burdett’s “Can’t Look Back” offers pointed imagery of small town America

“I was performing at a municipal festival out west — in Montana, I believe,” says Aaron Burdett, recalling the origin of his latest single for Organic Records, “Can’t Look Back.” “And it was one of those towns where you could clearly see both the decay of the downtown area and also the vitality it once had, maybe not so long ago. One of those forgotten Main Street towns that atrophied after the interstate drew all the gas stations and fast food places a mile outside of the original community center. It’s a bit of history on display. I’d been working on a few lines of ‘Can’t Look Back’ already and the rest of the song seemed to write itself as I walked around and visited a couple of the stores that were still in operation.”

After the high-spirited exuberance of his previous single, “Arthur’s Last Dance,” the new track returns to Burdett’s more characteristic contemplative mood — though to be sure, “Can’t Look Back”‘s musical setting is no less compelling in its forward motion. Accompanied once again by award-winning banjoist Kristin Scott Benson, in-demand mandolinist Tristan Scroggins, fiddler Carley Arrowood and bassist-producer Jon Weisberger, Burdett inserts his narrator into “one of those towns” and evokes a mood at once nostalgic and clear-eyed, especially when he’s joined on the choruses by harmony singers Wendy Hickman and Travis Book:

The world as it was might stay past tense
What’s done and gone will never come again
We can only count on what we have
Keep looking forward ’cause we can’t look back
Can’t look back

Blending the pointed imagery and deft turns of phrase of poetry with a memorable melody and solid bluegrass backing, “Can’t Look Back” is a compelling demonstration that Aaron Burdett’s creative powers are stronger than ever.