DBT Track # 73: Danko/Manuel

[Penny Lane]

When Clams asked me to do one of these, I was really glad this song was still available. I think there was a thread devoted to this a while back, but I'm not sure. It included a lot of pro-Robbie Robertson talk from Clams' aunt. This is an incredible song off of my favorite DBT album, in fact one of the greatest albums of all time, in fact written about some of the greatest of greats of all time. Too much greatness here. Really glad we all get to see Jason perform this from time to time. Would be a shame if we didn't.

There's not much to really say about it. All I know is what I've heard and read, which is that Jason started off writing it from the view of Richard Manuel or Rick Danko, but it evolved into a song about his own experiences. Seems to me that Jason is viewing himself, looking at the trials and tribulations these two went through (addiction, depression, stardom too soon, too young, excess, fame).

Someone once told me "Don't say nothing bout the things you never saw" is describing the scene in The Last Waltz where they're talking about women on the road and Levon kind of turns his head to the side and says, "Thought that wasn't going to be on camera." I'm not sure if that came from something Greil Marcus wrote or...I just remember someone telling me that.

I don't want to say anything else about what went into writing it because only Jason knows. I will say that when one of your favorite songwriters pays homage to some of your other favorite songwriters, it somehow validates something deep within us and makes us feel right about the records and concerts we 'waste' so much time and money on. If Jason never wrote another song, this and a few other songs of his would make my top 20 greatest songs of all time.



Let the night air cool you off.
Tilt your head back and try to cough.
Don't say nothing 'bout the things you never saw.
Let the night air cool you off.

I ain't living like I should.
A little rest might do me good.
Got to sinking in the place where I once stood.
Now I ain't living like I should.

Can you hear that singing? Sounds like gold.
Maybe I can only hear it in my head.
Fifteen years ago we owned that road
now it's rolling over us instead.

Richard Manuel is dead.




God forbid you call their bluff.
Like the nightmares ain't enough.
Remember when we used to think that we were tough?
God forbid you call their bluff.

First they make you out to be
the only pirate on the sea.
Then they say Danko would have sounded just like me.
"Is that the man you want to be?"

Can you hear that song? It sounds like gold.
Maybe I could make it bigger overseas.
Fifteen years ago we owned this road
now it only gives us somewhere else to leave.

Something else you can't believe.

Can you hear that singing? Sounds like gold.
Maybe I can hear poor Richard from the grave
singin' where to reap and when to sow
when you've found another home you have to leave.

Something else you can't believe.





lastly...'can you hear that singing...sounds like gold'

[Zip City]

I don't want to read a word about how GDLL is better than this

[Smitty]

Amazing... around the time I got "The Dirty South", this & GDLL really resonated with me, cuz I wasn't living near like I should've been. Jason's the master of nailing an emotion, and he hit it right on the head here. Let the night air cool you off...

[Tequila Cowboy]

My favorite Jason song. It just has this atmospheric quality that gets me every time... let the night air cool you off. Then of course the song evokes two of the most talented and, ultimately, tragic figures in rock & roll. Jason is at his best when he evokes deep and real emotion. This song has that in spades. Just amazing.

[Smarty Jones]

This song was the biggest grower for me out of all the songs on TDS. It didn't grab my attention at first, but the more I listen to it, the more I like it. Jason's delivery is so soulful and the arrangement really haunting - and since I've had the vinyl, I've appreciated it all the more. Terrific song, though I still think Jason's DD contributions are the best in his catalog.

[beantownbubba]

A fascinating song to me because it really is the definition of a grower: Even if you "get it" right away, it still reveals layer upon layer upon repeated hearings. I think TC nails it w/ this song being about deep and real emotions that reveal themselves more deeply and more real the more one listens. There's something about how the music and lyrics combine and also they way the lyrics are direct (this is not a song full of symbolism or metaphors) yet still open and a little mysterious.

Nice write up Penny, but I don't know about the Band achieving "too much, too soon." They were on the road playing backwoods one nighters for years as a backing band before they made it (though there was still plenty of excess along the way).

[Zip City]

I've been lucky enough to have seen Jason do this song all 3 times I've seen him, and it's always amazing.

[Penny Lane]

Nice write up Penny, but I don't know about the Band achieving "too much, too soon." They were on the road playing backwoods one nighters for years as a backing band before they made it (though there was still plenty of excess along the way).

Good point...and it seems like they all had their excesses before that, too..not even sure if that applies to Jason, either..

Zip--I don't know if I could choose between this and GDLL......When I had Jason sign my vinyl last year, I asked him to write "I'll take two of what you're having and I'll take all of what you've got."...Proud of that moment, being able to hold it together enough to ask him. I have courage over twitter, but in person, I can't handle meeting heroes.

[wrekkr]

*ding*

thanks penny!

[RevMatt]

This is a song that brings tears to my eyes, though I cannot explain why. It may be because so many of the lines speak to experiences that are universal for musicians. Tough to put a finger on it because, as a lyricist, Jason Isbell often begins with a concrete image but gets more abstract as the song develops. I'll attempt an exegesis.

Let the night air cool you off.
Tilt your head back and try to cough.
Don't say nothing 'bout the things you never saw.
Let the night air cool you off.

I ain't living like I should.
A little rest might do me good.
Got to sinking in the place where I once stood.
Now I ain't living like I should.

Can you hear that singing? Sounds like gold.
Maybe I can only hear it in my head.
Fifteen years ago we owned that road
now it's rolling over us instead.

Richard Manuel is dead.

The song opens with an image that reminds me of a hot and smokey night club. You stand on a small stage delivering three or more sets a night, working up a sweat. Between sets you go out in the parking lot, sit down and let the night air cool you off. You've got to clear all that bad air and phlem from your throat. It is not a healthy lifestyle. Most musicians have a shorter lifespan than, say, accountants. And it isn't just the booze and the drugs. The crappy road food and lack of exercise has probably taken more forty and fifty something guys than the drugs have taken the twenty and thirty somethings. Fifteen years ago -- when you were young -- you thought you had the world by the balls. You were the badass musician with a great band rolling from town to town. "We come into your town, we help you party down, we're an American band". But now you just feel old. Your back hurts from all that standing. You wonder if this shit is killing you slowly.

Richard Manuel was the weakest member of one of America's greatest bands. His singing sounded like gold. But he was prone to addiction and depression and he didn't really have the psychological make-up to handle a prolonged bottom. He went out on one last tour only to put hang himself in a Florida motel room. We've all had guys like that in one band or another, super talents whom we know are doomed. Levon Helm always claimed to regard Robbie Robertson's soliloquey in The Last Waltz about "the road" as a bunch of pretentious, drug induced crap. But you have to wonder given what happened if Robbie might have been onto something, that he somehow knew that if they kept it up something really bad would go down.

God forbid you call their bluff.
Like the nightmares ain't enough.
Remember when we used to think that we were tough?
God forbid you call their bluff.

First they make you out to be
the only pirate on the sea.
Then they say Danko would have sounded just like me.
"Is that the man you want to be?"

Can you hear that song? It sounds like gold.
Maybe I could make it bigger overseas.
Fifteen years ago we owned this road
now it only gives us somewhere else to leave.

Something else you can't believe.

Jason Isbell had not yet reached the age of 25 when he wrote this verse. By this time he had several years of almost constant touring under his belt. Already there was a buzz about his band, like maybe they were The Band of the new millenium. But he was jaded enough at this point to know it was all a bunch of smoke. A few years earlier a bandmate penned the line, "Rock and roll means well but it can't help telling young boys lies." Word. At first you believe what they say about you. It is only natural. But after a while you realize that you are just an itinerant entertainer. It is the way you make your living and the reality is that there is no more glory in it than any other hard way of earning your keep. There are hundreds of others just like you, out on the road in a van, selling t-shirts and merch, crashing on floors and chasing a dream. You really aren't any more special than any other guitar slinger out there. And you toy with the idea of relocating to some other country; someplace where they'd appreciate your artistry. In the fifties and sixties the jazz guys had Paris. In the eighties the indie guys tried England, Holland and Scandanavia. In the nineties that place was Berlin. There's no glory in the road. It just gives us somewhere else to leave.

Can you hear that singing? Sounds like gold.
Maybe I can hear poor Richard from the grave
singin' where to reap and when to sow
when you've found another home you have to leave.

Something else you can't believe.

Jason brings this one home nicely. In the end it is that sound that endures. Can you hear that singing? It sounds like gold. That sound is what calls us to the road. In the end, the promise that we too can make a sound is what keeps us going back long after we know that the rest is bullshit. It is what endures after we are gone. Richard's voice, man, you hear it once and it stays in your head forever. You have to try and hit that note for yourself at least once. And if you succeed just once your course is set. You will leave home just to chase it. And knowing that it's in you but you never let it out is worse than blowing any engine or any wreck you'll ever have.

[Clams]

This song was the biggest grower for me out of all the songs on TDS. It didn't grab my attention at first, but the more I listen to it, the more I like it. Jason's delivery is so soulful and the arrangement really haunting - and since I've had the vinyl, I've appreciated it all the more.

Smarty nails it. "Soulful" and "haunting" are perfect words to describe this song. And it definitely grows on you. I know I overlooked it my first time through the DBT catalogue. But eventually it does grab you. And with that opening line, the song works especially well while sitting outside on a warm, muggy summer night.

I've been lucky enough to have seen Jason do this song all 3 times I've seen him, and it's always amazing.

Yep - love how the 400 Unit gives D/M the full stretched-out rock song treatment, with thumping drums and bass, power chords and loud guitar solos, twinkling keys, etc. That arrangement really does the song justice. I don't have the download link handy, but Jason's second set from that Nashville show from last summer has a really great version of this song.


Great choice, Penny.
(And yet another example of "can't believe we made it to week #73 before someone picked this song")
btw - if anyone wants to do one of these threads, just shoot me a PM.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Wasn't this originally titled "Richard Manuel Is Dead" until the DBTs learned that Counting Crows planned to release a song by the same name?

[Zip City]

I've never understood why he changed the lyrics to the second verse. He doesn't sing "they say Richard would have sounded just like me" line anymore

[Rocky]

[Gang Green]

First heard this song on WXPN in Philly in 2004 or 05, and was the first Drive by Truckers song I locked into and which promted me to buy Dirty South. Though it wouldn't be until several years later I would be become a DBT fanatic. But, Jason Isbell has to be one best American song writers.

[bovine knievel]

great song and is one of my favorites by Jason.

The opening line:

let the night air cool you off

sets the tone and plops me into an imaginary place.

It just might be my second favorite opening line behind Tom Petty's:

Baby, don't it feel like heaven right now

nice pick, Penny

[Penny Lane]

Jason Isbell has to be one best American song writers.

THE best..

and BK--agreed... "Let the night air cool you off" is just the right way to start a song...you automatically go 'hell yeah, this feels good'

[Gaetzi]

I was a huge fan of the Band before I got into the Truckers so this tune immediately stuck out when I got a copy of TDS.. And man, Isbell just nails it! I'm not sure if there's a more touching moment in the history of rock and roll than Danko singing "It Makes no Difference" off the Last Waltz. That one gets me every time.

[Tequila Cowboy]

I'm not sure if there's a more touching moment in the history of rock and roll than Danko singing "It Makes no Difference" off the Last Waltz. That one gets me every time.

[one belt loop]

The Jason/Ryan Adams version I got to hear on Tuesday was ethereal.

[Rocky]

I was just on Youtube and the Isbell / Adams version of Danko / Manuel was in one of the videos paned on the right.

I just heard it for the first time. Wow. So sweet.

[Clams]

I was just on Youtube and the Isbell / Adams version of Danko / Manuel was in one of the videos paned on the right.

I just heard it for the first time. Wow. So sweet.

Wow. That's really good. Thanks for posting.

[Beaverdam]

Kind of interesting, but I was just thinking that Southern Rock Opera is to Lynyrd Skynyrd/Drive by Truckers as Danko/Mauel is to Jason Isbell/The Band. Both are somewhat concrete/somewhat abstract parallels between themselves (DBT and Jason Isbell) and a much older artist (Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Band).

As I read this, I"m not sure if it makes sense, but it did in my mind!

[Beaverdam]

Kind of interesting, but I was just thinking that Southern Rock Opera is to Lynyrd Skynyrd/Drive by Truckers as Danko/Mauel is to Jason Isbell/The Band. Both are somewhat concrete/somewhat abstract parallels between themselves (DBT and Jason Isbell) and a much older artist (Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Band).

As I read this, I"m not sure if it makes sense, but it did in my mind!