Southern Rock Opera

Certain Songs #351: Drive-by Truckers – “Angels and Fuselage”

October 25, 2015 by Jim Connelly

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.

Certain Songs #350: Drive-by Truckers – “Greenville to Baton Rouge”

October 24, 2015 by Jim Connelly

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.

Certain Songs #349: Drive-by Truckers – “Life in the Factory”

October 23, 2015 by Jim Connelly

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.

Certain Songs #348: Drive-by Truckers – “Women Without Whiskey”

October 22, 2015 by Jim Connelly

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.

Certain Songs #347: Drive-by Truckers – “Let There Be Rock”

October 21, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: Southern Rock Opera
Year: 2001

Today is the one-year anniversary of “Certain Songs.”

Conceived as a iTunes playlist; tracked on a Google Docs; written on a blog; full of embedded YouTube videos and publicized on social media, “Certain Songs” is an incredibly 21st century project. Which is why it’s ironic that the vast majority of songs I write about are from the 21st century.