The Dirty South

Certain Songs #356: Drive-by Truckers – “Goddamn Lonely Love”

October 30, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Dirty South
Year: 2004

Jason Isbell’s last great Drive-by Truckers song was so strong they had it close out The Dirty South.

After the all of the folklore and Southern mythos that covered the album like so much kudzu, it felt fitting to close it all out with a melancholy love song written by one member of the band to another. Like a reminder of what’s truly important.

Certain Songs #355: Drive-by Truckers – “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”

October 29, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Dirty South
Year: 2004

Set at the very dawn of rock ‘n’ roll, Mike Cooley takes a look at the famous Million Dollar Quartet — Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, for those of you keeping score at home — and their even more infamous record producer, Sam Phillips.

Probably if you like Drive-by Truckers, you know all about the explosion that came out of Sun Records in the mid-1950s, and while the impetus for the song is the fact that Sam Phillips gave Carl Perkins a Cadillac when “Blue Suede Shoes” sold a million copies, Cooley has more than just that on his mind.

Certain Songs #354: Drive-by Truckers – “The Day John Henry Died”

October 28, 2015 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Dirty South
Year: 2004

If Decoration Day was a conscious effort to tell smaller, more personal stories, then its follow-up, The Dirty South, found DBT feeling both their oats and their ambitions again.

While not quite a concept album — there isn’t really a through line here — The Dirty South tackled several Southern-oriented myths, large and small, and one of the key tracks was Jason Isbell’s “The Day John Henry Died.”