Tomorrow the Green Grass is the fourth studio album by American rock band The Jayhawks, released on February 14, 1995. It peaked at number 92 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Background
Tomorrow the Green Grass was the band's first album to feature keyboardist Karen Grotberg as a group member.
The album's title track was used in the closing credits of the 1995 film National Lampoon's Senior Trip, but was not included on the original edition of the album itself.
Tom Sinclair of Entertainment Weekly praised the album as being "everything a country-rock album should be" and stated that "even those who normally can't stand the genre are likely to be seduced by the plaintive vocal harmonies, pristine melodies, and scrappy-but-lyrical guitar solos".[4]Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune wrote that the album's "wider-ranging arrangements and instrumentation (strings, violin, keyboards) make the band seem less one-dimensional and studied than before."[3] The NME stated that Mark Olson and Gary Louris' vocal harmonies "attain that upliftingly sad tinge of gospel that was once the heavenly terrain of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris",[5] while Q wrote that Olson and Louris "lead their slightly expanded six-piece band through a string of beautifully bracing folk-tinged pop songs stunning in their simplicity".[7]Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave the album a one-star honorable mention rating, indicating it "a worthy effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like", and called the album "always sincere, never wimpy".[11][12]
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, critic Jason Ankeny wrote that "if Hollywood Town Hall is inarguably the Jayhawks' best album, Tomorrow the Green Grass runs a very close second", noting that the album's "eclectic approach pointed the way to the sound and style of the fine records the Louris-led version of the band would go on to make" following Mark Olson's departure.[2] Stephen M. Deusner of Pitchfork stated that the album showcases "a looser, more experimental tack" but runs "one or two tracks too long, a generous gesture that nevertheless lessens its impact, making it an uneven follow-up to Hollywood Town Hall".[6]
Bonus disc available on some European 1995 versions
Released in fall 1995.
"I'd Run Away" - 3:23
"Blue" - 3:11
"Last Cigarette" - 3:24
"Break My Mind" - 3:22
"Tomorrow The Green Grass" - 3:37
"Darling Today" - 2:59
"Up Above My Head" - 2:39
"Keith & Quentin" - 2:39
"Leave No Gold" - 5:44
Tracks 1 & 2 recorded for 2 Meter Session (VARA/NPS Holland)
Tracks 3 & 4 taken from the "Bad Time" single
Tracks 5 & 6 taken from the "Blue" single
Tracks 7 & 8 taken from the "Waiting For The Sun" single
Track 9 taken from the European release of the Hollywood Town Hall CD