Courtney Marie Andrews: a threat to Community Standards?

The notorious Courtney Marie Andrews

It is easy to assume the doomsayers are wrong about the dangers we face from unaccountable multinationals controlling huge chunks of our lives. That they need to chill with their weird conspiracies about corporations "cynicaly weilding power for their own malign ends" or "not paying taxes".

And then you get with a 3-day ban for posting a song and some lyrics from Grammy-nominated country folk singer Courtney Marie Andrews (who is touring Australia in March) and you realise dystopia's not just here, it's got a long-term lease and hasn't even forked out for the bond!

For context, my 3-day ban was on the heels of a 1-day ban for some equally harmless comment misunderstood by whatever AI systems Facebook employs. This presumably caused its robots to then scour other recent comments and the phrase "ugly Americans" tripped it's "UNACCEPTABLE!" wire.

I appealed both bans -- my heart filled with hope that my cry for justice would be heard! My pleas of innocence were cruelly denied.

I faced a choice. 

For myself, I'm not bothered. I've been banned before and no doubt will face the censor's wrath once more. I'll cope without Facebook for three days, I've got plenty of beer.

But... Courtney Marie Andrews?

I mean.... Courtney Marie Andrews? 

Courtney Marie Andrews violated community guidelines???

What the fuck?

Courtney Marie Andrews of Phoenix, Arizona may be known for many things (mostly tender lyrics over sweet-yet-melancholic folky tunes), but "violating community guidelines" via hate speech is not usually considered one of them.

A line must be drawn. If we have no freedom to get drunk and post sad country songs on Facebook for our so-called friends to politiely ignore, then what have we become?

So I took it to the highest court available: Facebook's Oversight Board.

This secretive body, to which you can request taken-down content be restored, gives you 2 weeks to issue an appeal that will be considered final. Also, they explain they probably won't even see it as only "a small number" of appeals are even looked at.

It's like Mark Zuckerberg looked around for the world's most absurd appeals processes and settled on the Australian immigration system.

Yet I made my case with the passion and self-belief of a man convinced that appeals to the ways quality songwriting in the country-folk tradition profoundly advance humanity cannot fail!

Asked to explain my appeal, I exposed the ridiculous falsehood and slander directed towards Courtney Marie Andrews' 2018 track "How Quickly Your Heart Mends".

Yes the Community Standards say hate speech includes speech directed at groups of people based on "Physical appearance, including, but not limited to: ugly, hideous."

And yes, Courtney Marie Andrews sings:

The jukebox is playin' a sad country song
For all the ugly Americans
Now I feel like one of them
Dancin' alone and broken by the freedom

But it is obvious this is not about all Americans, just those the character in whose voice she is singing views as ugly in a metaphorical sense. And that the character explicitly includes themselves in that category! Do Facebook AI programs not even understand what metaphorical means?

I did not hold back! Asked to explain the social significance of the content I wished restored, I quoted no less an authority than Tom Waits himself (who's "Downtown Train" Courtney Marie Andrews has so beautifully covered):

“The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.”

It is an objective fact that surely even the Oversight Board must recognise that Courtney Marie Andrews does the opposite!

The ball is now in their court. I do not wish to prejudice judicial procedings so I will simply state: if justice is not rendered in ths case then all honest-hearted global citizens must reluctantly conclude that, despite it's public statements, Facebook does not indeed have our best interests at heart.

Finally, because I believe people should make up their own minds, I remind you that Courtney Marie Andrews is touring Australia in March. For now, here is a playlist of her songs, starting with her most offensive ever. TRIGGER WARNING: Some are heartfelt.

Dori Freeman's Ten Thousand Roses is defiant, lush and why we shouldn't detroy the world for any world leaders listening

Reps of world governments are insisting on meeting right now in Glasgow for COP26 to discuss all the ways to spin letting global corproate power continue to wreck havoc on a planet increasingly crippled by mutliple fronts in an ecoholocaust. I mean, I wouldn't mind visiting Glasgow one day but I'll probably restrain myself from delivering dire warnings about "doomsday" while also being sued in court for actively faciliting plunder and destruction on a truly planet-destabilising scale. Tho that might depend on how much whisky I drink.

Against such odds, it can be easy to just gie up. But humanity has achieved great things far too valuable to lose, such as quality country music. There are no songs of being heartbroke and drunk on a dead planet!

Lucky then that to coincide with COP26 (or maybe to coincide with the re-opening of society after many months of pandemic control measures), there is a whole bunch of new music being released by artists in the broad and badly named "Americana" genre (or "heavyweight songwriting", as Australian country musician and Double J "Tower of Song" host Henry Wagons puts it).

The best I;ve heard so far is Dori Freeman's Ten Thousand Roses.

Freeman has a voice that can leave you speechless. The singer from the Appalachian region in Virginia matches devastating vocals with an understated persona and stage presence born of performance anxiety. Her 2016 self-titled debut was stripped back country/folk that stood out for its ability to convey emotional complexity in straighforward songs. On "You Say", she insists she needs no man to save her before shifting to hurt-filled longing for a man.

On his show, Henry Wagons described discovering Dori Freeman as one of those "holy fucking shit" moments. Freeman was in Australia for a festival in 2017 and he'd stumbled into some media event one morning in a hotel foyer where Freeman was playing to disinterested industry types and was blown away. It's no surprise, she has a voice up there with Emmylou Harris or Patsy Cline with its simple emotional power.

Freeman's quality from the start was shown in the fact that she got singer-songerwriter Teddy Thompson to produce her debut simply on the strength of songs she sent him on a whim. Teddy's dad Richard, a giant in folk and rock circles, offered his legendary guitar playing to Freeman's second album (on which she also covered Richard and Linda Thompson's "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight"). 

Ten Thousand Roses is Freeman's fourth album and her best since her debut. But where the debut stood out for its raw, stripped back vocal-driven qualities, this album rounds out Freeman's sound. Produced by her husband and drummer Nick Falk, it deepens the trend of her previous album, adding a kinda indie and often lush sound within her existing country, folk and bluegrass style. 

Along with added complexity to her sound, the album lyrically covers far broader ground. Freeman sings directly to a woman being badly treated by her partner in "The Storm", while on the "I Am" she happily describes herself as a "drama queen" with a "mind as dirty as the bottom of a coffee can".

There are songs of frustrated romance and lust, such as "I Wanted To" where, denied, she was forced to "call some other lover who was off the wall". But "he has to know, I was imagining you". 

"Nobody Nothing", meanwhile, advises women:

Go on and find you a man if you want to
But a bed will keep you warm in the night
Go on and fall deep in love if you want to
But take care that your head is on right
You don't owe nobody nothin'
You built yourself right up from the ground
You don't owe nobody nothin'
Now ring the bell and make a joyful sound

And then there is "Appalachian". On this stand-out track, Freeman confronts head on something she has often mentioned in interviews -- the idea that people from Appalachia are looked down on, not taken seriously, dismissed as "hillbillies" and patronised at best.

But, like fellow Appalachian country singer Tyler Childers' stinging response last year to Black Lives Matter that appealed to Appalachia's history of violent rebellion in support of the anti-racist uprising that was ripping through the US, Dori Freeman goes further. Noting how people from Appalachia are viewed and treated ("I'm a can for the world to as"), she follows Childers in savaging the corporate destruction of the region ("Another city they're carving, and here the people are starving".)

The dismissive, hostile or patronising attitudes towards the Appalachian region is wedded to the de-industrialisation, abandonment and gross exploitation of the region by corporate power that "put's the money we make in the pocket of their suits"). 

This understated song (it's not exactly Rage Against the Machine) contains a defiant pride:

I come from the holler, me and the flowers got taller
We reached right out to the sun, we drank up all of the rain
Like a spider we spun
Our web in all directions

But this pride is about far more than geography, it is shot through with real class pride: 

They'll try to wither you right down, tear you up from the red ground
If you're poor then you're stupid and blind
But I'd say a calloused hand
Is far better than a callous mind 

Ten Thousand Roses is Dori Freeman's best album so far. I can only believe ignorance could keep it off any serious list of best albums of the year. Surely.

"I'm a can to to ash in..."

"He says he's home and you believe him..."

"I'm not a good girl, although everyone thinks I am..."

What's the best Hayes Carll song ever?

 

This Covid lock down in Sydney has been going on for about 398 weeks with what appears to be twice that still to go. 

Living in one of the "bad" local government areas of Western Sydney that is both home to the multi-racial working class that keeps the city running and also needs to be punished with cops and soldiers, we get the added benifit of police helicopters flying overhead yelling through megaphones at kids to stop playing basketball (which of course is the main source of community transmission in Sydney, whatever fake news you hear about it being essential workplaces without proper protections coz employers are a bunch of profiteering fuckers backed by corrupt governments whose attitude to workers' rights is like mine towards booze suuplies in lockdown -- they exist to be demolished).

With nothing else to do, it is only natural our minds turn to key questions such as "What is the best Hayes Carll song ever?"

Such existential questioning about the Texas country singer's two-decade-long career is only deepened by the welcome news of a new Hayes Carll single -- "You Get It All", a heartfelt song of the sort Carll specialises in these days (ie: it's another love song for his wife, fellow country singer Allison Moorer).

Spoiler alert: there is no actual answer to the post's title. There is no "best Hayes Carll song ever", because it is all subjective -- and not just person to person, but anyone of us will change our minds constantly for a 1000 reasons,

It depends a bit which Hayes Carll you want. In the first phase of his career, with four albums released between 2002-11, Carll developed a a clear persona: the drunken poet. By his own admission, he played a character -- the dishevelled troubadour, stumbling from gig to gig all bleary-eyed romance and witty quips.

It was an enchanting character and I certainly loved it. I am just a year or two younger than Hayes Carll, so while he was drinking and gigging his ways through his 30s, I spent my 30s drinking and listening to him and wishing I was him in my weaker moments (after a few drinks, so most of the time).

Then, in the aftermath of the endless touring of his 2011 KMAG YOLO album, Hayes Carll hit a wall.

Playing the role of an outgoing charsmatic frontman of a full band rocking out with tales of debauchery and heartbreak was taking its toll. The character he was playing, that gave the introverted Carll the cover to go out each night, was starting to consume him. He was drinking way too much. His marriage disintegrated.

Hayes Carll called time and wrote a heartfelt piece for No Depression about the need to be himself and express himself as he actually is.

The result was a stripped back and deeply personal album "Lovers and Leavers", released in 2016 to justified critical acclaim. 

His subsequent album (and now the new single) continue in the vein of a more honest portrail of himself and his views. And entering my 40s just after Hayes Carll, I can relate to leaving behind an alcohol-fuelled persona that seems fun in your 30s but leaves you wanting some genuine peace and serenity (I'm only saying this here coz no one will actually read this post).

So the answer to the question "What's your favourite Hayes Carll song?" is which Hayes Carll?

Of the pre-2016 Hayes Carll, you could go for the laugh-out-loud wit of "She Left Me For Jesus" (or possibly "Another Like You"), or the aching barroom romance of "Beaumont"  ("Chances Are" also does the trick). 

Or maybe you just want the "what the fuck is actually going on I am SO FUCKING WEARY" sense of "Wish I Hadn't Stayed So Long" (and I really relate to this one for my own reasons, and if you put a gun to my head I'd chose it as my favourite).

But... getting older just slightly behind Hayes Carll... I find myself relating really strongly "Good While It Lasted" from "Lovers and Leavers".

So as far as tonight goes, I'll choose it as my favourite Hayes Carll song.

I smoked my last cigarette
I drank my last drop
Quit doing all the things
That I swore I'd never stop
I changed my direction
Sang a different tune
Gave up all those childish ways
That made me old too soon
Things were going good there for a while
I tried to straighten out the crooked road that I was on
It was good while it lasted
But it didn't last too long 

I used to play down on broadway
The same song every night
Singing for the tip jar
Underneath the neon light
Had a good time with the women
And the compliments were free
I dreamed of something bigger
But it just wasn't meant to be
But I was happy there for a while
Just like a desperado, out searching for a song
It was good while it lasted
But it didn't last too long 

Nothing last forever
Time knows that it's true
Sometimes a little while's the best that we can do
You ended up beside me
Like some long-forgotten dream
You took my hand and showed me colors
I had never seen
We both said forever, forever till the end
But forever's something different
To a lover than a friend
We thought we had it all there for a while
Just like that perfect moment 'fore the darkness turned to dawn
It was good while it lasted
But it didn't last too long 

The one thing I can tell from all this life that's come undone
It was good while it lasted
But it didn't last too long

 

Here are 6 John Prine songs to capture the spirit of being locked down with nothing to do and nowhere to go

When you are subjected to a lockdown, as Sydney is now, what you want, if you are like me, is entertainment that takes the ennui, anxiety, alienation from others and just general all-persuasive sense of melancholy and massively amplifies it. That's what I call living.

That is why it was a tragic irony that COVID-19 killed the great US country singer-songwriter John Prine, coz his whole output seems designed to be a humanist, compassionate and empathetic summing up the strange emptiness and background sense of unease that comes with very limited options.

So here are the 6 songs that seem to capture all that and SURE these songs are generally about other things, whatever the similarities, but that's coz a lockdown is just the reality for many people in the "rich world" under late monopoly capitalism just exaggerated a bit. 

Anyway, and I'm sure I don't have to say this but just in case, this is "whiskey-drinking" music. By all means substitute with your intoxicant of choice (as per the final song on this list) but for god's sake do not attempt sobriety at a time like this. Just don't. 

You can listen to all 6 as a playlist or I lst them below coz that's the kinda shit I do. I'm thoughtful.

Clocks and Spoons

Clocks and spoons and empty rooms
It's raining out tonight
What a way to end a day
By turnin' out the light...

Shoot the moon right between the eyes
I'm screaming
Take me back to sunny countryside

Angel from Montogomerry

There's flies in the kitchen
I can hear 'em there buzzin'
And I ain't done nothing
Since I woke up today

Hello In There

Me and Loretta, we don't talk much more
She sits and stares through the back door screen
And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen
Someday I'll go and call up Rudy
We worked together at the factory
But what could I say if he asks "What's new?"
"Nothing, what's with you? Nothing much to do"

Crooked Piece of Time

Things got rough
Things got tough
Things got harder than hard
We were just trying to make a livin'
In our back yard

We were born too late died to soon
Anxiety's a terrible crime
If you don't come now don't come at all
'Cause it's a crooked piece of time.

It's a crooked piece of time that we live in...

Yesterday morning an ill wind came
Blew your picture
Right out of the picture frame
Even blew the candle out
From underneath the flame
Yesterday morning an ill wind came.

Me, Myself and I

Well, tonight I'll throw a party
And I know who I'll invite
There's a strange and lonely person
With whom I'll spend this night
There'll be no old sad memories
To haunt me till I die
In that room there'll be a bottle
And me, myself and I...

Illegal Smile

When I woke up this morning, things were lookin' bad
Seem like total silence was the only friend I had
Bowl of oatmeal tried to stare me down, and won
And it was twelve o'clock before I realized
I was havin' no fun
Ah, but fortunately I have the key to escape reality...

Lucinda Williams' 1998 Austin City Limits is one of the truly great live shows that you can find on Youtube when drunk!

US singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams has revealed she had a stroke in November. The 68-year-old is recovering and although currently unable to play guitar is expected to make a full recovery.

That is good news, because Williams is not just a great songwriter, but a great human. She was expelled from high school in the late 60s for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Alliegence in opposition to the Vietnam War and has remained outspoken in song and beyond all her life (her most recent album is filled with fury about racism and misogyny and the state of her country).

By coincidence, the news of her stroke came just after I went on one of my periodic Lucinda Williams binges, specifically repeatedly watching her brilliant Austin City Limits show from 1998, just after the release of her career-defining album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. 

The reason was a debate that flared once more on The Very Long Thread (VLT). This is a thread on my facebook wall whose only goal is to generate as many comments as possible. Having started in 2013, so far the VLT has more than 365k comments at an often meandering pace by arguing about such topics as "are song lyrics a form of poetry?".

Now, I argued no. Although obviously similar, the nature of the forms means different pressures and contraints on the writing. It is a semantic argument that can't be resolved because you can just keep shiftng the boundaries and definitions until you finally finally after eight fucking years reach the 500,000 comment milestone (we can only dream).

But inspired by talk about poetry and lyrics, I put on Lucinda Williams. The country/blues/folk/rock (I hate the term "Americana") icon being one of the more poetic and poetry-influenced songwriters that US has produced in recent generations.

The result was I conceded straight away. Williams' ACL show is just song after song of fucking poetry put to a raw mix of country/folk/blues/rock (yes I know "Americana" is less words) played by a tight-as-anything band. 

Song after song I found myself yelling "IT'S MORE FUCKING POETRY!" then commented to that effect on the VLT because, after all, we need the comments. God knows when we'll reach 500K and if we can even beat the rapidly escalating climate apocalypse. 

It is an incredible show of a great artist at her peak. It deserves more recognition as one of the great live shows that you can find while on a drunken YouTube music binge. Williams' performance features a range of songs that can loosely be divided into three categories: death songs, "fuck you, arsehole!" songs, and deeply felt longing for a lost love songs. 

Enjoy!

1. Pineola (0:19​)

I saw his mama, she was standin' there
His sister, she was there too
I saw them look at us standin' around the grave
And not a soul they knew

They say start as you intend to contnue, and Williams starts with a tough bluesey song about a friend committing suicide. This will not be the last song about the death of a friend nor suicide, not by a long shot!

The song is very well-summed up in this Time magazine piece in which it features on a list of "100 songs of enduring beauty, power and inventiveness". It deserves it's place.

2. Metal Firecracker (5:00​)

We'd put on ZZ Top
And turn 'em up real loud
I used to think you were strong
I used to think you were proud
I used to think nothing could go wrong
All I ask
Don't tell anybody the secrets...

Slightly cheerier in that it's a song remembering a lost love with fondness. But it's not that cheery, due to the whole lost love thing. An up-tempo country rock track whose lyrical quality reminds me of the more recent and much-lauded Jason Isbell (with whom she's performing with in July in her first post-stroke shows, and who would be the first to name her as an inspiration).  

3. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (8:38​)

Sittin' in the kitchen, a house in Macon
Loretta's singing on the radio
Smell of coffee, eggs and bacon
Car wheels on a gravel road

Williams' signature song, or at least the glorious title track from her best album. A catchy honky tonk tune through which Williams evokes nostalgia with imagery of the minutia of daily life. It's key line comes right at the end: "A little bit of dirt, mixed with tears". This would be Lucinda Williams' best song if "Drunken Angels" didn't exist.

4. Right in Time (13:19​)

Not a day goes by I don't think about you
You left your mark on me it's permanent a tattoo
Pierce the skin and the blood runs through
Oh my baby...

This is definitely a cheerier song and that's because this folk-rocker is all about masturbation! More specifically, it's a vividly poetic and gleeful account of taking the time to pleasure yourself as you think of someone who.... well of some who "moves right in time with me". 

Anyway, I think we shoud move on, not ... ahaha... because I am in any way unfomcortable with an open embrace of sexuality and self-delivered pleasure or anything. God no! It's just... what's the next song?

5. Drunken Angel (17:58​)

Sun came up it was another day
And the sun went down
You were blown away
Why'd you let go of your guitar
Why'd you ever let it go that far...

Back on the familiar ground of death! This is a souring anthematic epic about her friend, little known Texas-based country singer Blaze Foley who was killed in tragic circumstances. Foley was shot trying to defend a friend from being robbed by his own son, with the jury aquiting the son of murdering Foley apparantly on the basis no one could understand what a white guy like Foley was doing in the home of his Black friend in a Black part of town in Austin, Texas.

The notoriously down-and-out Foley, who never got far career-wise due to a mix of bad luck and drunken self-sabotage, has since become cult figure with a documentary and film staring Ethan Hawke about his life. The fact John Prine and Merle Haggard recorded him is a sure sign Blaze Foley could write a song. And as this song shows, so can Lucinda Williams.

6. Greenville (21:21​)

Empty bottles and broken glass
Busted down doors and borrowed cash
Borrowed cash, oh the borrowed cash
Go back to Greenville, just go on back to Greenville

This is a superficially tender-sounding country ballad. Don't be decieved. It's the first of the "fuck you, arsehole" songs! And it is certainly not tender in its sentiments towards to bloke to whom she repeatedly insists "just go on back to Greenville". 

With an intesity that slowly builds through the song, she savages the sort of ego-centric, fucked up, selfish areshole you can imagine infesting the artistic circles around places like Austin, Texas through which Williams moved. The lines, "Looking for someone to save you, looking for someone to rave about you..." just nails the type. 

You know the type. They're on Twitter right now whinging about how woke cancel culture interferes with their God-given right to be a genius. Well, fuck you arsehole coz this song is genius.

7. Still I Long for Your Kiss (25:43​)

I know that I shouldn't but I want you so bad
I know it couldn't be but I want what we had
I know our love is gone
And I can't bring it back
Still I long for your kiss

A straight up tender country ballad! No death, no suicide, no murder and seemingly no arseholes! I mean it's still sad of course. It's about a desperate longing for someone you can no longer have. This is, after all, country music. But it's possibly the most convention love song on here and it's fucking great, the band really go to town with this one. 

8. Lake Charles (30:13​)

He was born in Nacogdoches
That's in East Texas
Not far from the border
But he liked to tell everybody
He was from Lake Charles

Oh my God this is another death song. It's about an ex-lover and I beg of you, for the love of God, do not listen to this song if you've been drinking whiskey. Or at least waterproof your house from the tears that will flow should you be so reckless.

This song is truly poetry put to music. A strong challenger to "Drunken Angels" and "Car Wheels" for "best Lucinda Williams song ever". Fuck it's a heart-breaker.

9. Changed the Locks (35:42​)

I changed the kind of clothes I wear so you can't find me anywhere
And you can't spot me in a crowd, and you can't call my name out loud
I changed the kind of clothes I wear

This is another "fuck you, arsehole" song, with the guitars unleashed. Williams is determined to get a toxic guy out of her life, but for a while I struggled to get the full signficance of all the lines. I think because it's take on complex personal gender politics from a female perspective it is just a little above the head of another dumb man.

Bascially, this song isn't just saying "fuck off" to a former lover, but acknowleging ongoing feelings of attraction. It took me while to fully get that this is because 1) people are complicated and therefore can still feel attraction to someone they no longer want anything to do with; and 2) this is something toxic arseholes try to cynically manipulate.

When Williams sings she changed her phone number so he can't call her up "and make me fall down to my knees" or change the car she drives so "you can't chase me up the street and you can't knock me off my feet", it is a statement of a refusal to have her complicated emotional life manipulated by a toxic arsehole.

Also, the song rocks.

10. Disgusted (39:31​)

And I go with my baby
What man like a woman with a sassy child
I won't have to ask him no questions
Man, because he knows the reason why

This is the only track in the show not written or co-written by Williams. By an old Lighting Hopkins associate Melvin Jackson, this straight up blues number is nonetheless still about saying "fuck you, aresehole". But it has a happy ending. The singer finds a man with lots of money and therefore no longer needs wake up early in the morning "coz i won't have nothin' in the world to do".

11. Jackson (42:45​)

Once I get to Lafayette
I'm not gonna mind one bit

Oh it's another tear-jerking tender country ballad. Like "Still I Long For Your Kiss", this is a relatively straight-forward tale of longing. It is, at the same time, absolutely pure and beautifully written poetry. 

Williams likes to incorporate a sense of place into her songs, and this is the third of these songs to be named after a place. This one goes further and names a different place across the US South in each verse. When you are onto a good thing, take it up a notch!

12. Sweet Old World (49:02​)

The breath from your own lips, the touch of fingertips
A sweet and tender kiss
The sound of a midnight train, wearing someone's ring
Someone calling your name
Somebody so warm cradled in your arms
Didn't you think you were worth anything

It's another death song! Specifically, another suicide song. An almost impossible mix of grief and beauty, this is a note to a loved one to ask them the hopelessly futile question: "How could you leave?"

Just don't listen to it if you've had a few. 

13. Passionate Kisses (54:12​)

Is it too much to ask
I want a comfortable bed that won't hurt my back
Food to fill me up
And warm clothes and all that stuff
Shouldn't I have this
Shouldn't I have this
Shouldn't I have all of this, and
Passionate kisses

This very catchy track is the only hit song Williams has written to date, with Mary Chapin Carpertner's 1993 version breaking into the top 5 of the US country charts.

It is a manifesto of Williams' "personal is political" brand of feminism. Williams has essentially produced her version of the famous poem "Bread and Roses" by socialist suffragette Helen Todd, which delcared: "Yes, it is Bread we fight for—but we fight for Roses, too." 

In "Passionate Kisses", Williams insists on her right to a fulfiling life and "passionate kisses too". It should not be a radical sentiment, and yet...

14. Something About What Happens When We Talk (56:54​)

If I had my way,
I'd be in your town.
I might not stay, but at least I would have been around

It's another country ballad full of longing. But like all Williams' songs it doesn't just repeat a cliched formula. It's filled with little pockets of unique depictions of a very specific, personal relationship. By the time the guitar solo hits, this song has captured an emotional state best described as: "I've been drinking and listening to sad songs like this again".

15. Joy (1:00:54​)

I don't want you anymore 'cause you took my joy

This is a straight-up all-out rocker of a "fuck you, arsehole" song. It's not complicated. Some areshole took her joy and she wants it back. This being a Lucinda Williams song, it also name-checks a bunch of locations across the US South. 

16. Cant Let Go (1:09:33​)

Says he's sorry then he pulls me out
I got a big chain around my neck
And I'm broken down like a train wreck
Well it's over I know it but I can't let go

The last song, with the band working themselves into a final frenzy as Williams delivers one her  "longing" songs with a dash of "fuck you, areshole" chucked into the mix too. If only the arsehole also died it could have summed the whole thing up. Still, a fitting end.

Do read the comments: Forget John Prine's CMA snub, he was deeply loved by those who count

They say never read the comments, but there are exceptions. 

For instance, if you read the comments under any random Youtube clip of John Prine, who died from COVID in April 2020, you'llread a flood of heartfelt emotion about the US country singer who died from COVID-19 back in April. It is no wonder. He sung stories of ordinary people's lives and struggles with with and humanity in equal measure.

Yet this year's Country Music Awards, a notoriously corporatised event for country establishment which have also been criticised for lack of inclusieness over the years, did not see fit to even mention his name.

Nor did the CMAs make any mention of Jerry Jeff Walker or Billy Joe Shaver, who were essential figures in the vibrant, deeply creative Texas country scene that arose around Austin in the early 1970s. 

In what I am sure is pure coincidence, the Texas scene personified independence from the country music establishment and Austin became an alternative to Nashville -- the base of that establishment that is personified in the CMAs.

Prine, on the otherhand, was a mailman from Chicago who played country but was closer in origin and spirit to the folk scene that emerged from cofee shops and bars in the 60s. It's hard not to see the left-leaning politics and social concerns being a factor in the snubbing.

The snubbings caused a predictable outcry. Singer-songwriter couple Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires -- both huge fans as well as close friends of Prine's -- handed back their CMA memberships in disgust. 

Representatives of a succeful brand of what is sometimes seen as "more authentic" singer-songwriters in country, Sturgil Simpson and Margo Price, also voiced their disgust with the CMAs.

The snubbings acted more as a final straw. Shires had previously worn a t-shirt to the CMAs criticising the country music industry's exclusion of women, while Price had already refused to attend on grounds of CMA's exclusionary approach and "plastic" nature (she'd already used her debut Grand Ole Opre show this year to support Black Lives Matter and slam the country music industry for its racist history). 

As for Simpson, a hugely succesful independent country artist, he pointedly busked on the street in front of the venue instead of attend,

Neither Prine, Walker or Shaver had the sort of sustained commercial success the CMAs thrive on. They have a reputation as "songwriter's songwriters", and while that is true (Bob Dylan called Prine his favourite songwriter), it's not the full story. 

Far from lacking mass appeal, they had it in spades -- just not filtered through the corporate structures who enforce a mindnumbly narrow set of cultural tropes. Snubbing John Prine while embracing Florida Georgia Line is an act of war on popular culture.

But in many ways, for the CMAs to actually recognise Prine, Walker and Shaver after their deaths would be an act of hypocrisy after snubbing them while alive. It would never have been acknolwegment the counted.

The best tribute to Prine comes from those who loved him. 

The contrast between the CMA sub and the love expressed "from below" is deeply symbolic. And you can get a taste through a spin through random Prine clips on Youtube -- the passion turning to grief in comments posted post April 7, 2020.

One example:

"I was heartbroken before he ever sang a word. I was one of those with a 'hole in his arm where all the money goes'. I carried Prine around in a stolen walkman player with a beat up cassette over-due from a library loaned in another state. He spoke pictures of life folks lived like he knew us personally. Like he lived it himself and had the words that connected with the feelings. But i won’t miss him, too much, I’ve got the legacy he’s left us. I wish i could tell him 'thanks'."

The lyric quoted comes from this song.

'Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.'

A random scroll through other clips produced a flood of tributes, a few examples I'll put below.

"God, I wept over my dinner listening to his music... I hate that he's gone."

"His songs can move me to tears, and I really don't care if the whole world knows."

"His music and words resonate with me like few others can. His music helped me through some dark days. Actually he’s still helping me get through some difficult times."

"I have had tears over the loss of 3 people in my life ,my mother,my sister and now John Prine .Im 73 and my heart is broken over the loss of one of the sweetest souls on earth.R.I.P. John "

"John Prine could bring a tear to a glass eye. I am overcome with emotion every time I hear this song."

"John wrote songs that captured the genuine, broken beauty of humanity. Leonard Cohen once noted that the cracks in everything are how the lights get in. John Prine was the light."

"No musical artist has ever affected me as deeply as John Prine."

"If you love John Prine, you are a friend of mine."

"If John Prine needed a kidney and mine worked, I would give it to him."

"John Prine sings from the heart - and his songs tell the truth ... The working man's Mozart."

"Tonight I am an old woman, and a mail carrier from Chicago, and Dear Abbie and a guy just trying to save his marriage while cooking sausages, and the one who wants people to quit hollerin at me. The kid wearing other peoples clothes, I am America, I am the underdog, the under served, the helpless. I am Prine."

"John Prine is not dead. Until the last person who ever heard his songs dies, he will never die."

"Makes me cry every time. 'Hello in there, hello'. Be kind. That is all."

'Some humans ain't human, some people ain't kind'

Now I'm not saying John Prine wrote that aove song for the pricks from the CMAs, but I'm not not saying that either.

Now that Ken Burns doco has proven that quality country music is actually awesome, here is my country music playlist

"Country music doesn’t deserve its right-wing reputation — its roots lie with the hopes and travails of working people." So wrote left-wing music critic Alexander Billet in Jacobin Magazine in a piece Jacobin published that is almost enough to wipe away Jacobin's horrific, unspeakable Merle Haggard obit (but still not enough... that was shocking).

Still, if there is one thing too-cool-for-school kids of all ages love, it is making jokes about how uncool "country and western" is. Stupid hats and suits and rednecks singing corny cliches in an irritating whine interupting only by yodelling and a whole gamut of ultra-conservative views. You know, just like the country music that Johnny Cash is so infamous for.

So when Trump was first elected 3000 years ago (or "in 2016" if believe in conventional measurements of time, which I no longer do), a friend posted on facebook that the "worst thing" would be "all the country and western music". 

Get it? Ignorant rednecks voted for Trump and they listen to country and western! HAHAHAHA if we get nothing out this nightmare we at least get hilarious jokes like that!

As no one has actually seriously used the phrase "country and western" to describe country music anytime in the past 70 years, use of the phrase "country and western" is a dead give away that someone just repeating mindless prejudices against one of genres of popular music that has proven, over decades, in multiples waves, to be a wonderfully literate, profound, poetic and grounded form of popular music, rooted in the real experiences of ordinary people. 

I mean for god's sake, look at country music legend John Prine who sadly just died from the virus and he was all that to every inch. 

Of course, there is plenty labelled country music that is shit, cliched and absurd. This stuff is generated and sold by corporate record companies and played on corporate radio stations and it is manufactored and pointless and sometimes gets truly, insanely, mindnumbingly lame (search "bro country" on youtube... I dare you).

But imagining that kind of stuff is the essence of country music is like imagining Vanilla Ice is the essence of hip hop. 

The whole use of genres is pretty articifial to begin with. Most musicians cross over to some extent and all the genres to emerge in the 20th centruy of North America have common roots in the melting pots of cultures from Africa and the Europe, brewed in poverty and exploited by those with money to sell records. 

"Country" (or hillbilly music as it was first known) was sold to white audiences, "blues" was sold to Black audiences, but both emerged as fluid mix of the musical and story-telling traditions from Africa and European nations like Scotland and Ireland. The influence of Black musicians on country and non-white country musicians gets written out of its official history, but the genre still remains very popular to play and listen to among Native Americans and Aboriginal communities in Australia to this day.

Does it really matter if people reject "country music" on a false basis? Probably not, except you see people that you know, based on their other musical preferrences, would actually really like a lot of country music if they just let themselves. They are missing out. 

A great antidote to stupid cultural prejudices is the Country Music documentary series by acclaimed US film-maker Ken Burns, which is screening on SBS. It has been justly hailed as a brilliant social history of not just the genre of country music but US society and popular culture in the 20th century.

Those who already loved country music love the series, those who thought they hated it love the series. 

It;s good, but as good as it is, it doesn't answer the question everyone wants to know: "If Carlo Sands was going to put together a playlist giving an overview of country music he likes, what 35 songs would he choose?"

And I am delighted to be able to answer... THESE 35 SONGS!!! ON MY COUNTRY MUSIC PLAYLIST!!!

I've had a variation on this list for like the past half dozen years or so, but keep changing it. It is very sort of an introduction to country music but mostly...it is examples of the stuff within the broad church I like, which leans heavily to the "poetic singer/songwriter" wing that often gets called "alt.country" or "Americana" but is far truer to country music's origins than anything ever released by Garth Brooks. It starts with some classics, missing many, then on to those from a bumbper crop of high quality songs from 21st century artists

Anyway, I've got two versions, the longer version that is 35 songs long and then the shorter and sharper one I've somehow cut down to 25 songs. All sorts of worthy artistis are not on it. This is not "the best of country music" just a sample of the shit I like. Both lists are 50/50 male and female singers, whicb no doubt underplays the role of female singers in the genre. Comment with what is missing in the comment section if you must.

THE FULL 35 SONG LIST!!!

THE EDITED 25 SONG LIST VERSION FOR COWARDS!!!

Here are all the song titles for my country-folk singer-songwriter debut album

I am a singer-songwriter operating in the country genre, of the sort they tend to call "alt-country" these days, I guess, to distinguish it from the absurd nightmareish horror that passes for mainstream country -- though there is of course a growing rebellion in recent y ears, as there is every few years in country music, with the likes of Margo Price and Sturgill Simpson and Tyler Childers and many more reclaiming the genre...and me. Of course.

It may be objected by some that I have certain disadvantages in launching a country-folk singer-songwriter career in that I can neither sing nor write songs. Nor play any instrument. Nor have I ever shown the slightest aptitude for anything musical.

There are always those trying to drag you down. I prefer to focus on the positives, such as the fact I already have all the song titles worked out for my debut album of classic country songs about heart ache, alcoholism and a troubled relationship with God. I hearby release the titles for the world to see and await expressions of industry interest.

***

Too Much Booze Will Kill You (But So Will Not Enough)

Whiskey River Took My Soul (So I Drowned In It)

I Don't Believe in Death (But It Believes in Me)

I'm Still Drinking About You

Jesus Says He Loves Me (But I've Taken Out a Restraining Order)

Please Don't Save Me, Jesus

But Who'll Save Jesus (Coz It Won't Be Me)

I Kicked The Drinking Habit (But The Bastard Kicked Back)

Without You (I'm Drinking For Two)

An Alcoholic's Kiss (Always Tastes Minty)

Even My Beer Has Gone

I'm Sorry I Drank All Your Booze (But I'm Not Sorry I'm Drunk)

She's An Enigma (Wrapped in a Cliche)

The Grass Is Always Greener On Top (Below It's Just Dirt) 

The Past Is A Locked Door (And You Stole The Key)

Waiting Round To Drink

Desperados Waiting For The Pub To Open

Man In Black (With Slight Vomit Stains Down The Front)

I'd Walk The Line (But I'm A But Unsteady Right Now To Be Honest)

Hey God, Buy Me a Beer You Bastard

Bottles and Bibles (The Preacher's Been Drinking Again)*

Whiskey Whiskey Whiskey Whiskey Whiskey Why Did You Leave Me Whiskey Whiskey Where is My Whiskey

* This is a cover of a song by the great, young Kentucky-native country singer Tyler Childers.

...Now the preacher's been drinkin'
But it's hard not to do
Since she ran out the screen door
And swore they were through

Oh Lord, if you care, send a spirit down here
Cause the preacher's been drinkin' again...

I Saw John Prine Live And I Didn't Cry, Who Said I Did?

John Prine, at a gig that wasn't the one I was at, but at which I also didn't cry.

I saw the legendary American country/folk singer John Prine on the weekend at the State Theatre in Sydney and I didn't cry. Why would I? Who said I did?

What sort of freak would cry at the likes of Prine, who was discovered and championed by Kris Kristofferson (who said Prine's songs were so good "we'll gave to break his thumbs") and who, when singing 'Sam Stone', one of the first songs he ever wrote while working as a mail man about five decades ago about a Vietnam vet suffering PTSD who dies from a heroin overdose, offers up lines like "good songs don't last long on broken radios"?

I didn't cry.

I didn't cry when his opening act, young Kentucky country singer Tyler Childers, ended his set by singing "Lady May", a beautiful love song to his wife. I don't know who has been telling you what, but my eyes were dry!

I was bemused, I'll admit, when Childers first appeared coz he was wearing a nice suit and was clean shaven with a short, neat haircut whereas the clips I've seen of him he had his long, wild red hair pulled back with an unruly beard and his dress sense was more... well about up to my standards of slovenly care.

How I had been lead to believe Tyler Childers would look.

But then he started singing and his hoarse, but emotively powerful voice rang out through the State Theatre and that was him alright, singing his stories of a heartbroken preacher succumbing to alcoholism or of a quiet night where he "only had a couple of drinks" and "a few good hits from an antler pipe" and he "must admit I had a couple of white lines' and then the next thing he knows he awakes to the noon light with a pounding head and a black eye and it "feels like fierce abandon", you just like everyone else's Tuesday night too, this guy is singing our lives!

I may have have been enthralled in his stories, sure, but I never cried when a simple story of love like "Lady May", sung as the best country songs are, from the bottom, from a man who has "held my weight in shame".

Now I ain't the toughest hickory that your ax has ever felled, but I'm a hickory just as well. I'm a hickory all the same...

I think it is his use of rural imagery that enables me to relate, being a renowned outback type myself.

Prine!

Now I will admit I felt like crying, sure, at only being able to see a truncated opening set by Childers, without his full band. And at the fact that, early on especially, he had to play while many in the audience were still taking their seats. Sure. I felt like crying. But the point is I didn't, whatever tales may have been spread by my enemies.

Then John Prine came on and he at least had the decency to look exactly as expected -- small, hunched over, old and absolutely nothing like any kind of popular music star, let alone icon. Until he sings his tale of wit, love and loneliness, but, and I don't know who has been telling you what, but even when he went for the heart I didn't cry.

I didn't cry when John Prine sung "Hello In There", from his 1971 self-tiled debut album, about the loneliness of growing old. I didn't cry when the narrator, recalling his growing list of dead friends, notes, "We lost Davy in the Korean war. And I still don't know what for, don't matter anymore." Anyone who says I did is a straight up liar.

I didn't cry when John Prine sung "Summer's End", a melancholic song tinged with a gentle sense of grief from his latest album, which was released with a video tying it to the US's devastating opioid overdose crisis, now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. Of course I didn't.

I didn't cry when he played "Angel from Montgomery" from his first album that was later a hit for Bonnie Raitt, or at the endearing sweetness of "I Have Met My Love Today" from his latest. All these accusations are getting ridiculous.

I may have laughed.

I may have laughed when he sung a one-person duet of "In Spite of Ourselves", his tale of lovers who bug each other, first recorded with Iris DeMent. (He "drinks his beer like its oxygen", she "thinks crossing her legs is funny").

And when he sung "Jesus The Missing Years", where he speculates about what the Son of God might have gotten up to in those years the Bible doesn't mention (such as recording with The Stones). And at "When I get To Heaven", from his latest album details the vices he is keen to restart.

I definitely smiled an illegal smile during "Illegal Smile", also off his debut and which offers an energetic defence of consuming cannabis. Mine came courtesy of the baking efforts of a friend staying with me, but judging from the enthusiasm of those who joined in the chorus, I was not alone in wearing a grin still banned in this godforsaken country.

Hell, I probably should have cried when he played "Paradise", one of popular music's first ecological songs that describes the environmental destruction wrought on the town he grew up in by a coal company, seeing as that describes the goings on in this godforsaken country all too well.

But at no point, and I can't stress this enough, did I shed any tears. Nor were my eyes even moist. It is absurd that I have to answer this campaign of fake news, but these are the times we live in.

I'll admit one thing: I still feel like crying when I think of how expensive the tickets were. Mine was in the cheapest stalls and was still just shy of three figures. The profiteering gentrification of live music seems to gall more with the case of someone like John Prine who has dedicated his career to singing stories of ordinary people only for the type of characters who fill his songs to be priced out of seeing him play them.

But I didn't cry, and I hope that is the end of it.



'You know what blood looks like in a black and white video? Shadows...' John Prine also played this literary tale that jumps from a pre-European colonisation creation tale to a disintegrating marriage to two random, unexplained murders.

Saturday. An in-depth conversation with my brain.

Here at An Alcoholic's Guide To Modern Life (AAGTML), we* strive to provide you, the reader, with fresh daily content for your enjoyment and enlightenment, and before this post we had managed to provide a sum total of two posts for 2018 to date, which frankly is a pretty good fucking hit rate for a blog with "alcoholic" in its title.

Anyway, in big news, I've got a new job that gives enough cash to drink myself to death, but not the time to do the drinking, that old catch-22 of the working man. Of course, the harder you work, the more you value your weekends and so here is my average Saturday, which is today motherfuckers!

ME: Oh Saturday! Finally, a chance to sleep in as long as we like, eh brain?

BRAIN: Yeah, lol, fuck that shit WAKE UP NOW!

ME: But... it's like 6am, like I don't even wake up at 6am on weekdays! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?

BRAIN: I know, I'm crazy! This is what you get, arsehole, for constantly trying to kill me off with booze!

ME: Yeah? [Picks up bottle] Well fuck you! I'm gonna poison you real good now, you self-sabotaging prick!

BRAIN: WHAT? No, no no no no no COME ON DUDE! PLEASE! NOT IRISH WHISKEY! YOU KNOW IT MAKES ME SING! I CAN'T SING! PLEASE!

ME: [chug chug chug]

BRAIN: [Out of tune] 'I met my love by the gas works wall... IT'S A DIRTY OLD TOWN, IT'S A DIRTY OLD TOOOOOOWN....'

ME: HAHAHAHA you really can't sing! HAHAHA THIS IS HILARIOUS!

BRAIN: YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS TOMORROW! YOU ARE GOING TO FEEL SO MUCH PAIN!

ME: Haha... oh shit.

REPEAT.

Here is a loosely related new song by outlaw country act Sarah Shook and the Disclaimers with a clever inversion of the late great Merle Haggard's classic, "Tonight The Bottle Let Me down".



Every day you tell me I'm a drunkard
And every night you lie awake and stew
I never claimed to be anything other, darling
'Cause the bottle never lets me down the way you do

Every night I sit 'til sun-up drinkin'
And every day I wait for night to fall
So I can clear the darkest mem'ries from my recollection
And hear no sounds and feel nothing at all...
* I use the "royal we" coz... I don't need a fucking reason!

Margo Price's NPR show the day after Trump won. An emotional, but defiant performance by awesome, rising and political country singer

This NPR "tiny desk" features country singer Margo Price on November 9 last year -- the day after Donald Trump was elected. Yeah I know it is over a year ago now, but I've been busy! With many things! Such as drinking, living in denial at the coming destruction of the last remnants of human civilisation, and not listening to Margo Price's NPR tiny desk show from November 9, 2016. It's been fucking hectic.

Over the past few months I've come across Margo Price and she's great. She has been making waves with music that, unlike much of what dominates country radio, is actual country music, stories of of pain and resilience filled with heart. Naturally, Nashville has little time for her, but she is part of a new wave of great women country singers outside the Nashville mainstream, along with the likes of Dori Freeman, Kristina Murphy (who I literally first heard today but already love) and Sarah Shook.

Price's NPR desk show was obviously always going to have to relate in some way to the rise of Trump, but its no real surprise she openly took it on (the notes from NPR below the clip explain the context). Price is explicitly, but not heavy-handedly, political (as an example, two of the three tracks at the NPR performance were not written as political songs, but took on political dimensions with Trump's win.)

Price is political in a way that gets label in the US as "liberal", but that label doesn't do it justice. This isn't about partisan party politics -- with the Democrats putting in a poor showing anyway of actual progressive politics -- but ordinary people and their interests in the fact of systemic inustices.

The show was recorded a few months after after her impressive debut album, Midwest Farmer's Daughter, last year. The album won many accolades and debuted at number 10 on the US country charts -- the first time a female artist has debuted in the top 10 with her first record.

She has since released her second album, All American Made, it is even more political -- filled with anger and defiance as she takes down institutionalised sexism from a working-class perspective on tracks like "Pay Gap".

It goes beyond shallow liberal anti-Trump stuff with gut-level response to systemic injustice. The title track, although it explicitly refers to and ironically inverts Trump's "make it in America" rhetoric, was written before Trump's win. It swings from general points ("everywhere I go, somebody puts e in the dirt") to references to historical events like the Iran-Contra scandal under Reagan in the 80s.

This is not about Trump dropping from the sky, but being an product of modern America -- he is, himself, very much all-American made. It is further evidence to the emptiness of prejudices that country is a reactionary genre.

And, like the debut, it also has some great country songs about pain of love gone wrong, and features a duet with Willie Nelson. It broke into the top 10 US country, folk and indie charts.

Price is the sort of artist that gives hope for popular music in general and country music in particular, as a vital creative force with some reason for its existence, that can relate to the world around it.

The clip, which features the title track for her latest album and two tracks from her debut, is below, followed by NPR's notes.



Bob Boilen | November 28, 2016 — When I greeted Margo Price in the NPR garage before her Tiny Desk performance, tears were streaming down her face. It was Wednesday morning, Nov. 9, the day after the 2016 election. For her — as for many Americans — it was a stunning and bewildering moment in time, a day when life and the everyday took on new meaning. And so when she and her band began to play "All American Made," a song she's sung many times before, those words about America's changes and failures in the 21st century seemed even more powerful. Margo Price is a Nashville-based musician, the sort of country artist that captures the hearts of those both inside and outside the country-music scene. Her debut album, Midwest Farmer's Daughter, is one of the brightest moments in country in a very strong year. As this Tiny Desk progresses, even "Four Years Of Chances," her song of a love gone wrong, feels less about a lousy husband and more about presidential politics. She dedicates her third and final song, "About To Find Out," to Donald Trump; she says it was originally written about a "musician acquaintance of mine who's a complete sociopath." When the song ends, she rips open her red cowboy shirt to reveal a T-shirt with the words "Icky Trump"— a play on the title of The White Stripes' song "Icky Thump," which criticizes the U.S.'s immigration policies. She smiles, wipes a tear away: It seems cathartic, but temporary. Midwest Farmer's Daughter is available now: iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/mid... Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Midwest-Farmer... SET LIST "All American Made" "Four Years Of Chances" "About To Find Out"

You can see also see a longer show with full band in front of live audience.

BONUS TRACK!

Here is an upbeat, cheery track all about exploitation and systemic sexual harassment of women in the industry and in general!



In this town everybody's trying to get a piece of everybody else
It gets hard to tell a real friend from a fake one
So many promises, favors, and lies
Most of the town wears a good disguise
And even I, too, have been known to wear one

As the saying goes, it's not who you know
But it's who you blow that'll get you in the show
And if that's not the case I hear you pay 'em
But I don't come easy and I'm flat broke
So I guess it's me who gets the joke
Maybe I'd be smarter if I played dumb

I can't count all the times I've been had
Now I know much better than to let that make me mad
I don't let none of that get me down
From what I've found this town gets around

Now the very first manager I ever had
He was old enough he could have been my dad
He took me out for drinks and talked a big talk
He said, "darling sign on the dotted line
You know, "kiss my cheek and drink this wine
But if you walk on me, then you can just walk

I can't count all the times I've been had
Now I know much better than to let that make me mad
I don't let none of that get me down
From what I've found this town gets around

When I first came here the streets were paved with gold
And you can walk that road, I've been told
But I won't put out or be controlled
I don't write the shit that gets bought and sold
Ask any man
He might know
Who used to live on Music Row
But that was then, and this is now
He told me this town gets around
From what I've found this town gets around

The Yes vote was a great win, so here's a couple of sad songs by LGBTI country singers about love gone wrong to celebrate

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.

Listed last year by Rolling Stone in a list of 10 New Country Artists You Need To Know, when she isn't spending her mornings drinking whiskey, Sarah Shook is an openly LGBTI performer and civil rights activist from North Carolina, who has won an award for her work in promoting a Safe Spaces initiative in Chapel Hill, NC.



'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.

As to marriage equality, Cash Savage never waited for any bullshit plebiscite. She married her partner, magazine editor Amy Middleton, a while back.

***

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....'