It seems these days have to care about personal hygeine, which comes as a shock to a 42-year-old man. But apparently we must do crazy shit like wash our hands thoroughly, and to help sections of various songs have been suggested to sing.
Well we might as well use this terrifying global crisis of uncertain danger to civilisation to highlight the really good lyric writers out there, the highest quality story tellers operating in the singer/songwriter world.
Now it is the turn of Jason Isbell, the greatest lyricsts so far in the 21st century and the way this century is going there might be much time for him to be beaten. (Unless I get too bored with this, next up will be Lucinda Williams.)
The list starts with the first song of Isbell's that was recorded, which was released with the Drive By Truckers. "Decoration Day" is the ultimate song about a surprisingly recent bloody fued in Alabama that is also a true story to which the songwriter has some family connections. It's a tough field to top but Isbell manages it easily with a truly insane, tragic andcomplicated story. Then there's song 6 which is maybe too dark given the potentially deadly virus causing havock around the world, but it is Jason Isbell so what do you expect.
I've included links to listen to the songs so you can pick up the melody. You can buy his music and merch here. Don't thank me, just buy me a beer sometime, maybe when the Apocalypse has passed.
Celebrations in Sydney. Photo: Peter Boyle/Green Left Weekly.
They say nothing good ever happens, but events yesterday sure put paid to that! Yes, I got a ticket to Alabama's "alt-country"/Americana superstar Jason Isbell! I cannot fucking wait! You can check out this recently streamed live show of Isbell with his band the 400 Units from the famous Ryman Auditorium in Nashville to see why this is really fucking exciting news.
Also, the results were released of the non-binding survey on whether to support marriage equality in this country and it was a decisive victory for "yes" in a rare win for humanity, equality and basic fucking human decency.
(For the record, Isbell tweeted his support for Australians voting "yes" early in the campaign.)
It is a strange feeling, in this godforsaken nation, to feel positive about anything relating to the cluster fuck that passes for "politics" here. But after an unnecessary voluntary postal plebiscite (coz obviously in 2017 there is no other way to resolve an important issue than mailing out ballot papers with prepaid envelopes via a largely defunded postal service) and a fucking ugly campaign by the well-funded, Christian fundamentalist-driven no campaign...
... the vote, with a turn out of 79.5% of registered voters, was about 62% "yes", with clear majorities in all state and territories.
As a non-binding survey -- why would you spend $122 million in taxpayers money to resolve something definitively -- it does not resolve the issue in-and-of-itself. But it makes it a political certainty in some form, and a bill is expected to pass parliament by Christmas.
This has made a lot of people very happy. You can see some of them below, in the Green Left TV footage of the moment the result was announced to thousands of people in Sydney's Albert Park.
No doubt it has made a few people sad, mostly people called Miranda, Tony or Lyle. I won't show you them because there's too much misery in the world already.
So finally, Australia can catch up with famously socially progressive nations like Ireland and that country that gave Donald Trump the keys to the White House in allowing same-sex couples to marry, if not fully resolving all issues such as legal discrimination for trans people in various fields.
It may not be perfect, it may have taken an unnecessary toll on LGBTI people, but still.... if a win like that is not worth celebrating, I don't know what is.
And I know how to celebrate!
With Guinness!
With whiskey!
And sad country songs!!!
There is no occasion I can think of in which decent country songs about love going wrong are not appropriate, least of all a situation which is, after all, a celebration of love!
Now, country music has a reputation as some sort of uniformly socially backwards form, but it isn't. There is all sorts of country music, including by LGBTI performers. The mainstream country industry can be very conservative, and many just see that as the entire genre, as though you could reduce rock music to Limp Bizkit or Billy Joel, or hip-hop to, I don't know, Vanilla Ice....
So here are a couple of good country songs by a couple of LGBTI singers. Because love is love, as they say, and it frequently fucking hurts!
'I'm drinking water tonight coz I drank all the whiskey this morning. Drank the whiskey this morning, coz my baby, she ain't coming home...'
This is a fucking sad song. You see, "last night she went up to the bar, said she met some big country star". This country star is, apparently, "like [country legend] Dwight Yoakam". Not is Dwight Yoakam, which might be easier to take, merely sounds like the guy. And she's gone having "taken every last one of my good years". God, no wonder Sarah Shook is on the whiskey in the morning.
'It took 19 years to find her, and three years to make her mine. We had four good years of loving, but it only took two words to break her heart...'
Oh God, Melbourne-based country-blues singer Cash Savage knows how to pull out a gut-wrenching vocal.
In some ways, this is less "country" country than Sarah Shook. With Savage's bluesy voice over a driving banjo, it has bit of a bluesy folk vibe more than straight up "twang". But it definitely has a country soul -- ie: misery over love gone wrong.
And yes, OK... I guess I might as well throw a couple of "happy" and "positive" songs in the mix.
'Aint gonna reference no lonesome road, I confess my affection has grown and grown. I'm in love!'
Here, Cash Savage sings to the glories of love in a song that is almost a spiritual experience. Soulful doesn't being to describe Savage's vocal style, and on "19 Years" and "I'm In Love", she shows how perfectly capture both extremes of that crazy fucking thing called "love".
And ok, this one below is not country nor is about love, at least not in an individual sense. This is a song by Gossip, fronted by LGBTI singer Beth Ditto, about LGBTI defiance in the face of the then-Bush administration's attacks on her community. It is... well it is defiant and on point.
'Standing in the way of control, we live our lives....'
Now, I've been pretty quiet about it, I know, but I actually do have a solo stand up show at the Sydney Fringe Comedy festival next week, in fact on Wednesday and Friday at 7pm and Sunday at 6pm. Just in case if you are interested at all.
I don't care. I don't care if you attend any of the shows at are at the Container room at The Factory theatre, to which you can book tickets here for the cheap, affordable price of $15/$10, which frankly is a fucking bargin.
It is also a fundraiser for Green Left Weekly, so I guess it depends, like, if you want the planet to survive or not. I mean I'm not saying it literally hinges on this show, I'm just saying you'd have to be some sort of Donald Trump-loving prick to consciously not come. That's all. The choice is yours. Fascism or humanity. Choose wisely. I mean, I don't care myself...
The point is, faced with a show next week, some performers might try to focus on last minute building, or even working on refining the material by going to various comedy rooms to test things or just agonising in front of their laptop over exact wording, pacing and structure.
That is because they are hacks. The key question is to spend your time developing a musical playlist to accompany the show.
And by "accompany", I don't mean literally. I don't mean the songs have any role in the show. Don't worry, you can turn up to the show without country music ruining your night. Or the Hobart-originated Nation Blue screaming about corporate destruction of a small town in rural Australia with lines like "THESE STREETS ARE SCREAMING HELP ME!!!"
They are just songs that I like and happen to relate loosely to the theme. The type of songs I think about when I think about the shit I talk about in my show.
They describe the sort of topics that get discussed, but as is self-evident, they don't as a rule contain jokes and let me tell you... that's one thing my show has! Jokes! Oh yeah! It is sort of the point!
(Of course, the Hayes Carll and John Prine tracks have a couple of witty lines, as they are witty chaps, but still not the same as trying to come up with a 50-minute stand-up show.)
So, my show is called "Inspired?" and it is about the hilarious topic, which is the fact it is fucking hard to be inspired about the world and the prospects for positive change when everything is SO FUCKING SHIT and seemingly getting worse.
This is dealt with by these songs in various ways. It runs through the shit we deal with, the fact life is hard, the fact our politicians are pricks, the fact climate change is terrifying, the fact this is hard to deal with, and then runs through to the crucial question of hope in the face of darkness.
The list includes incredible acts like Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Jason Isbell ... and more! Some aren't even country/folk/Americana!
Well you can hear it below and my show will be like this, only with jokes. So like if you like these songs... come along! And if you hate them... then fear not, they play no role in my show at all, and forget this post ever existed!
Just... come along if you are in Sydney. You will not regret it. Here's the fucking playlist:
Yar:
I don't need to read the papers Or the tea leaves to understand This world's been shaved By a drunken barber's hand
Well, I know, I miss more than hit With a face that was launched to sink And I seldom feel, the bright relief It's been the worst day since yesterday
Everybody knows it's a hard time Livin' on the minimum wage Ah, some people just gonna sneak on through Others gotta rattle that cage One of these days, I'm gonna find my way Or else just disappear I'm out here in the filth and squalor And all I wanna do is stomp and holler
Well over the sea, and far away, Our kids die in deserts, they been sent that way...
Well Hell doesn't want you And Heaven is full...
Some humans ain't human Though they walk like we do They live and they breathe Just to turn the old screw They screw you when you're sleeping They try to screw you blind Some humans ain't human Some people ain't kind
From the cradle to the grave You will always be a slave To the quiet darkness of your memories And that's the truth, my friend The ugly truth, my friend I've got proof, my friend And that's the truth
These streets are screaming help me Burn the town down Burn the fucking thing down!!!
There can't be more of them than us There can't be more
I know you're tired And you ain't sleeping well Uninspired And likely mad as hell But wherever you are I hope the high road leads you home again To a world you want to live in
As I walk through This wicked world Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity. I ask myself Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery? And each time I feel like this inside, There's one thing I want to know: What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
I caught the last train at Redfern on a quiet Monday night after midnight and the atmosphere was spooky. I stood near the far end of the platform waiting for my train and a young woman's voice: "Let's just HUNT FOR EVER!", followed by the laugh of another young person.
I drew the obvious conclusion: "Fuck. It's vampires."
My blood ran ice cold as I gathered up the courage to risk a glance in their direction... And I see two young women hugging each other tightly, and I realised -- one of them had actually said: "Let's just HUG FOREVER!" And sure enough they they looked like they might try, so enrapt in each other were they... But the train came and the two young lovers reluctantly separated and as I also got on the last train home I thought... I still hope she's not a vampire or I am fucked coz we just got in the same isolated late night carriage.
Suffice to say, I made it home alive and without being transformed into one of the Undead, doomed to roam the world at night feeding off the blood of mortals.... Or did I?
In the show, I employ segues as brilliant as that one just then to grapple with questions of how to be inspired and positive in a world so horrific, and I absolutely will not drink the blood of audience members, having been turned into a vampire on a dark and lonely Monday night just after midnight at Redfern train station...
Or will I? No, I won't. It would violate the festival's OH&S policies.
Having got my plug out of the way, you can enjoy a song from Jason Isbell that combines the crucial topics of lovers and vampires and how lovers might wish to be vampires so they could indeed hug forever.
Isbell is a disturbingly talented singer-songwriter from Alabama whose latest album, The Nashville Sound, hit number one on the US Country, Folk, Rock and Indie Billboard charts coz he is better than a human has any right to be, and the song is about his wife Amanda Shires, a fellow singer-songwriter who is also in his band and sings backing vocals on this track.
If we were vampires and death was a joke We'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke Laugh at all the lovers and their plans I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand Maybe time running out is a gift I'll work hard 'til the end of my shift And give you every second I can find And hope it isn't me who's left behind
