Today's Pick

"American Idol" runner-up Crystal Bowersox has just made an unexpected comeback with a music video for "Farmer's Daughter." This emotional intimate tune is the title track and first single off 25-year-old Ohio native's just released hard-fought debut album Tuesday, and there couldn't be a better visual for such a powerful song. Take a brief look at the 'healing circle' Bowersox has gone through in her life before becoming of who she is now, and it delivers "a passionate, soulful combo of country, blues, rock and R&B." Instead of presenting herself as the usual talented lump of clay, ready for molding, Bowersox exuded a take-it-or-leave-it confidence.
Unlike most other 'Idol' debut records, the disc features several songs that Bowersox wrote during her pre-Idol days, including this one. The personal and autobiographical song tells of Bowersox's difficult upbringing and tackles alcoholism and child abuse. The song "is an angry song to my mom, but she knows that I love her." Bowersox said that her mother wasn't thrilled that her daughter wanted the song to be her first single but, "eventually, she'll be okay with it. At the end, it comes to a resolution of, I guess, my acceptance of my mother and being a mother, It ends where I am today." She added "It's a pretty dark song about my relationship with my mother and dealing with her fits of alcoholism and physical violence. People don't really want to talk about that, but too many people experience that kind of thing to not talk about it. I see it as a healing song. I love my mother, and we have a pretty good relationship now."
"Farmer's Daughter" is a painful recollection of child abuse. However, Bowersox says she hopes the severity of the track will draw attention to the topic. "The subject matter is pretty heavy, but it's honest," she said. "There are plenty of people out there dealing right now with what I dealt with as a kid. Sadly, a lot of people can relate to it, and it's going to strike a chord. A lot of my youth was very dark and ugly. But I don't see 'Farmer's Daughter' as a dark song, because for me it was healing. All of the emotion in that song is no longer inside of me."
The Meiert Avis-directed video that actually tells a coherent story, and will depict a "healing cycle of anger/healing/forgiveness" she has gone through. Bowersox said during an interview about the video set, "It starts with a little girl, who I guess is symbolically me, her mother is pushing her away and they go through the whole video and these obstacles and things." The video shows Bowersox performing the song in a room, while flashbacks of a young Bowersox leaving her mother with a piece of her sweater in tow are placed in between. The metaphor of the unraveling sweater slowly unravels as Bowersox walks through the different stages of the song, and in turn, the different stages of her life, the final shots of her new family-full circle and healed. The video tells a powerful story.