On Thursday night I saw the singer/songwriter Joe Henry at the Joe Allen Room in the Time-Warner Center. (You will not easily find a more beautiful view of New York than through that space's floor-to-ceiling window, looking out across Columbus Circle all the way across Central Park South.)

Henry is an American singer, and I mean that in the deepest sense of the phrase. He is not a popular singer, though I wish he were more popular. He does have a connection with pop culture, in that he he is married to Madonna's sister. And he introduced a song with a Madonna reference, telling a story about how they wrote a song together and decided it'd be interesting if they each recorded it in their own different styles. "I did it as a tango," Henry said. "She did it as...a hit." Sweet.

Joe Henry is obscure enough that there are only a handful of YouTube videos about him, and this song, "Trampoline," is a few years old. Listen to his new record, "Civilians," and particularly the songs "Time Is a Lion" and "Our Song." The latter uses an imagined sighting of Willie Mays in a Home Depot as an exercise in considering national decline, though Henry probably wouldn't put it that way. It's a work of poetry, and those of you out there who are Dylan lovers might see a kindred spirit. Otherwise, this is music to put on when you're home alone on a cold night with your significant other, drinking a fine cabernet...