WHOOOAM (thump thump thump thump thump) DA NANANANANANA
"Where the Devil Don't Stay" announces its self with unbridled power. Shit just got real. For our hero (musically speaking), nothing will ever be the same again.
Scrap like a wildcat fights to the end, trap a wildcat and take his skin
There might not be a finer opening to a DBT album than "Where the Devil Don't Stay". You're hit right from the start by pounding bass drum, and a raw hanging chord. Cooley's gravelly boom kicks in, and a searing slide riff courtesy of Mr. Isbell start melting your face. Right away, its clear that the title of this album is going to be instructive of the subject matter. Cooley, with the help of his uncle, spins a tale of a Dust Bowl era 'Bama moonshiner in the depths of despair, and cuts it with a bit of the socio-economic commentary that we would continue to see throughout the album. "Tell me why the ones who have so much make the ones who don't go mad?". The track soars with some great harmonies courtesy of Shonna Tucker and Mrs. EZB, and the tangled three guitar melee of Cooley, Hood, and Isbell. All the way to the end, this one fights. Like a wildcat. Needless to say, our hero was floored.
It sounded like a train...
"The funnel cloud touched down, 5 miles north of Russelville". One thing about DBT that sucked me in so immediately was the way that they painted these incredibly specific stories that made me feel like they were talking about something specific that had happened to me. It is the mark of a truly gifted songwriter to write in this fashion. To be able to make a specific tale that has a personal meaning to people who had nothing to do with the event in question is rare. Just 3 years prior to our hero placing this album in the car stereo, he witnessed an F3 touch down 5 miles north of Riceville, and destroy quite a few folks' homes and farms. It was as if Patterson Hood was speaking directly to him about something he'd witnessed. The hooks sink deeper.
John Henry was a steel drivin' bastard, but John Henry was a bastard just the same. And an engine never thinks about his daddy, and an engine never needs to write his name.
It's rare for music to move me to tears, but I choked up a little on that June day when I heard this line for the first time. Here was this soaring, driving song that was catchy as hell. As the clear theme of the investigation of Southern/American mythology becomes more apparent, you get floored by this commentary on the nature of man v. machine. John Henry out-worked that machine, but he was human. He was susceptible to the same weaknesses as all of us. To be loved, to advance himself. To be more than just a device that cranks out production. It was a brilliant slice of insight on one of the most well-known stories in American folklore. "Who the fuck writes songs like this?" our hero implores.
God damn Reagan's in the White House and nobody gives a damn...
The "holy shit" tour continues. Shakey-esque chords come slashing through the car speakers. An ominous, steady drum beat. A half-spoken first-person perspective story of some poor sumbitch who knocked up his old lady, lost his job, started selling drugs, and then lost his wife. But the cocksuckers in Washington are more concerned about sending a guy to the moon than they are about fixing the real, every day problems of the folks here on Earth. Each verse builds a sense of urgency, highlighted by spiking, staccato chords in the final verse. Building, and building until the protagonist of that story (or the dude channeling him) unleashes one of the most hair-raising howls in rock and roll history.
Damn it Elvis, don't he know he ain't no Johnny Cash?
Hey, its the dude from the first song! I like this guy. By this point, our fearless hero is reading the liner notes. He is now aware that Sam Phillips once had a contest between the Golden Quartet of Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins of giving a Caddy to the first person to get a gold record. Ironically, the winner of that Caddy would end up being the guy who achieved the least amount of commercial popularity out of the group. Brilliant one-liners abound as this Mike Cooley guy waxes poetic on the legacy of Sun Records, and making good on your word.
I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima...
Whoa? What is this? The rock and roll bustle has been slowed down to a quiet, haunting acoustic riff accompanied by the dude from the Reagan song singing in some high-ass falsetto. "This is interesting", our hero thinks to himself. Here we see Patterson Hood tearing into another myth. I knew that John Wayne had got exempted from serving in WWII, so the above italicized line rang pretty true. Too often it seems that people leach onto the romantic re-invention of catastrophic events in history, and the real story, as told by those who were there, ends up falling through the cracks of time and memory.
To be continued...
