Song of the Day: 'Where Will I Be?," Emmylou Harris

Published: Monday, March 14, 2011, 5:14 PM ��� Updated: Monday, March 14, 2011, 5:49 PM

A rock critic as influential as Robert Christgau once implied that Emmylou Harris did her best work as a support vocalist. Her backing vox are amazing, but I think he meant to damn her with faint praise: on his review of "Wrecking Ball," the '95 set she cut with Daniel Lanois behind the board, he said she had no vision of her own for the producer to ruin. What looks like flexibility from one angle can appear as stylistic drift from another. But it's worth pointing out that no female singer has exerted a greater influence on alt-country vocalists than Harris, who never seemed like she was in a honky-tonk, but instead inhabited astral American airspace. Even ironists mimic her crystalline delivery. It's impossible to imagine Jenny Lewis without Harris.

Arguably, Lewis has spent most of her solo career, and much of her tenure with Rilo Kiley, trying to write "Where Will I Be?," the first song from "Wrecking Ball." This is Harris as Bono's inscrutable big sister, fretting about judgment day as Larry Mullen hammers out a tattoo for the angel brigade on his magic snare. Lanois wrote "Where Will I Be?" himself, and chances are, he sat on it for awhile before he found the perfect voice for it. Harris sounds more than half in the next world as she sings. Can't God find it in his heart to break character, pat her on the back, and let her know she's in? Because she is, of course. There are many versions of this song on the internet; I chose this one because it's loud, Harris' voice break in the chorus is particularly chilling, and the rhythm section is straight-up fire.

Songs of the Day are posted weekdays at 3 p.m. For past Songs of the Day, click here.

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