We're Not Who You Think We Are
Album: Decoration Day
Year: 2003
Decoration Day was probably where I realized why I loved Drive-by Truckers so much: they reminded me of Sedan Delivery, my favorite of all the bands I’ll ever be in.
We had a lot in common: a healthy love of the entire continuum of rock and roll, dark lyrics wedded to uplifting music and multiple singer-songwriters who were equals.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #352: Drive-by Truckers – “My Sweet Annette”
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.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #351: Drive-by Truckers – “Angels and Fuselage”
Album: Southern Rock Opera
Year: 2001
The penultimate song on Southern Rock Opera, “Greenville to Baton Rouge” is pretty much all exposition. The entire lyrical function is to get inside the head of someone — lets call him “Ronnie” — on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s final plane crash.
And musically, it’s somehow the most punk rock song on Southern Rock Opera and the most Skynyrd-like. So, like a Replacements song from Hootenany! had they decided to steal from Lynyrd Skynyrd like they stole from The Beatles.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #350: Drive-by Truckers – “Greenville to Baton Rouge”
Album: Southern Rock Opera
Year: 2001
Had Southern Rock Opera been released a couple of decades earlier, “Life in the Factory” would have been the song that kicked off side four. And like, oh, I dunno, Quadrophenia, it uses that exalted spot to be a fractal of the entire album.
So like “Dr. Jimmy” or Zen Arcade’s “Turn on The News” “Life in the Factory” pretty much states the entire musical and lyrical theme of Southern Rock Opera in a single song.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #349: Drive-by Truckers – “Life in the Factory”
Album: Southern Rock Opera
Year: 2001
And then there’s Mike Cooley. Especially in the early days of my DBT fandom, I underrated him and his songs. But over the years, I’ve come around.
After all, Patterson Hood was the big picture guy, and almost immediately after Southern Rock Opera, they got Jason Isbell, who came out of the gate with motherfucking “Outfit, so it took me awhile to kinda noticed the baby-faced dude with the ancient voice.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #348: Drive-by Truckers – “Women Without Whiskey”
Album: Alabama Ass-Whuppin’
Year: 1999
This one really is more story than song. But it’s one hell of a story.
You see, Patterson Hood is the son of David Hood, the bassist in the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, who played on a shitton of great records in the 1960s and 1970s, including at least one Certain Song, “Night Moves.” (Bursts into tears.)
But, alas, the life of a musician sometimes conflicts with the life of a family man, and Patterson Hood’s parents got divorced, throwing his mom into an epic funk, where is where “18 Wheels of Love” begins.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #346: Drive-by Truckers – “18 Wheels of Love (Live)”
Album: Alabama Ass-Whuppin’
Year: 1999
Almost a decade ago, I declared Drive-by Truckers my current favorite rock ‘n’ roll band, and since that time all they’ve done is release four great albums, a really strong odds ‘n’ sods compilation, and they have a career-spanning triple live album coming out while I’m writing about them.
No one cares, but Drive-by Truckers have turned out to be as consistently great of a band as America has ever produced, their legacy both unenlivened and untainted by the massive popularity their amazingly accessible music should have produced.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #345: Drive-by Truckers – “The Living Bubba (Live)”
You can talk about genres, artists, albums, or even songs, but sometimes what keeps us coming back to music is the discovery of the transcendent musical moment. For me, “the moment” is the part of the song that fully and utterly engages me; the reason that I keep coming back to it.
I’m not necessarily talking about hooks here, because the purpose of a hook is the draw you into a song. I’m really talking more about traps: the part of a song that that keeps you there.
The is the fifth in a series. The first one had 25, the second one had 24, the third one had 23, the fourth one had 22.
Also: there is a slight — but not total – Christmas theme going on with this one. More of an arc, really. And a couple of mini-arcs, too!
Every single moment I’ve listed below kills me single every time I hear it.
Oh, and this isn’t in any kind of order, despite the numbering.
“Rock & roll means well, but it can’t help telling young boys lies.” That’s the line. I was one of those young boys who got lied to. Who desperately believed each and every one. The lies started thirty years ago, and they’ve never really stopped.
And last night at the Wiltern Theatre in the heart of a rainy Los Angeles, they were being told again in a way that I haven’t seen in years, as The Hold Steady and Drive-by Truckers put on one of the best rock shows that I have ever ever seen in my entire life.
[Read more…] about The Lies of The Hold Steady and Drive-by Truckers
NOTE: Because of a godsdammed bug between Flash and Firefox for Windows, I’ve had to break this up into two parts in order for the players to work for those with that particular configuration. Stupid internets.