“Jonathan Richman closes his 20th album, 2008’s Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild, with “As My Mother Lay Lying,” a simple, emotionally powerful song in which he sings about sitting with his mother as she hovered near death in a home for the elderly, and how much he continued to learn from her even in her final moments. It’s a singular piece of work that without calling attention to itself shows how far Richman’s muse has taken him in the past decade. While sweetness and unaffected emotional honesty still dominate Richman’s music, he’s quietly allowed his music to grow in unexpected ways, embracing French and Spanish as well as English, writing of art and the ecstasies of love with unforced intelligence and brio, and pondering the mysteries of life and decay in a manner that’s never pretentious but still conveys the weight of his themes. Richman covers a Leonard Cohen number, “Here It Is,” and it fits like a charm with the 12 new originals on this album (one divided into two parts); Richman may not share the same dark undercurrents that inform Cohen’s lyrics, but as he’s matured his songs reflect a depth and fearlessness these two songwriters certainly share, and the intimacy of these recordings, most featuring just Richman and percussionist Tommy Larkins, only adds to their effectiveness. When Jonathan Richman debuted with the Modern Lovers, he sounded like someone who had somehow managed to create his own style independent of what was happening in the world of music around him, and with Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild, he confirms that he’s still following a path all his own, and it’s a journey that’s strange, compelling, and very beautiful.” —Mark Deming, All Music Guide

“Her Beauty is raw …but not funny. I have had mixed feelings about ‘Because her beauty is raw and wild‘ as the first eponymous song seemed to be just the following of what Jonathan had done before in his recordings since ‘I’m confused’. But I was wrong, this new album stands on its own right and it is some masterwork. Already the pictures on the booklet are everything but canonical beauty when we are confronted with those gloomy deserted greenish flats. I had a proper listening to the full CD and found disillusion, heart-gripping feelings and sincerity. Now I understand the choice of covering Leonard Cohen, the paths between the 2 singers are getting closer.

From the get-go, it’s been stripped down, lo-fi as anything he’s ever done. Minimal production. It’s as though Jonathan and Tommy are right here in the room with me. The guitar sounds huge at times, like a mouse at others. The drums are like a gang of giant excited heartbeats speaking to me. And the liner notes! By Jonathan himself! Off the cuff, like he’s chatting with us about the content of the album. I like how he characterizes his songwriting process: the songs are all “thought up” at one time or another.” —jojofiles.blogspot.com

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