Album: Southern Rock Opera
Year: 2001
The last song on Southern Rock Opera is, naturally, another great Patterson Hood death song, sung from the perspective of a guy — let’s call him “Ronnie” — realizing that he’s plummeting to his death.
It’s a dirge. Sparse and ornate. Just some skeletal guitar and a slower than slow drumbeat, as if all of time has slowed down while he’s having these final thoughts.
The engines have stopped noww
We all know we are going down
Last call for alcohol
Sure wish I could have another round
But of course, there’s no time. Not even for a shot. And yet while you know that all is chaos around him in those last moments, it’s not really framed that way. Like in LOST when they would show you scenes of everybody freaking out about some terrible event without actually letting you hear what’s going on.
Instead, Patterson Hood chooses to focus on Ronnie’s thinking about death, as he sings — for all of us:
And I’m scared shitless
Of what’s coming next
And I’m scared shitless
These angels I see in the trees
Waiting for meeeee
Waiting for meeeee
Naturally, the melody of this chorus is absolutely gorgeous, one of the prettiest things Hood’s ever written, and along with his background singers and as the guitars eventually swell up, it becomes apparent that those angels are taking Ronnie up to heaven like in that scene in that Doctor Who Christmas special a few years ago where those robotic angels take The Doctor to the very top of the Titanic spaceship to save the day.
It was risky ending such a high-powered rock ‘n’ roll album with such a slow — quite frankly — bummer of a song. And yet, it was also the right call. “Angels and Fuselage” gives Southern Rock Opera the proper ending that a tragedy should have, and — like most of the best songs on the album — could have stood alone, as well.
All I knew for sure was that I couldn’t wait to see what they were going to do next.
“Angels & Fuselage” performed live in 2011