Your Top 5
Drive-By Truckers' Songs
Your Top 5 was born out of my love of music and reading and the book and film High Fidelity. Each week, I ask a new guest to give me their top 5 tracks, albums or artists relative to a topic.
This week’s Your Top 5 is another tough one. I love The Drive-By Truckers—so picking 5 of their songs for this list was incredibly hard. Joining me this week is Jeff K of The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. Not only is that one of the best names for a Substack, but Jeff actually approached me about this particular top 5, so I encourage others to do the same. If you have an idea, reach out, I do not bite.
Regarding the photo above, I went to see DBT in Ithaca many moons ago at a venue that is no longer even there! I was able to actually meet Mike Cooley as he strolled across the dancefloor after having dinner on an outside deck. For spring in Ithaca, it was fairly warm that day. I even enjoyed a few beers outside at the Ithaca Beer Co. before the show. The show was great and the band ripped through nearly every DBT song I like except they didn’t play “Shit Shots Count”, which was a bit of a bummer cause I had that one on near constant rotation during that time. Oh well. Anyway, let’s see what Jeff’s top 5 are!
Jeff K’s Top 5
This is a post about the Drive-By Truckers. A southern rock/Americana band most closely associated with their explorations of the American South and what it means to be a Southerner. In the interest of full disclosure, I am not from the South. I am from the Midwest, although I married a Southern girl. I live in Dallas, Texas. While I can drive 45 minutes1 and see Confederate monuments, Texas is not the South either. Sure, there are still believers in the Lost Cause here, but it’s not how the state traditionally defines itself. Texas is Texas, high on its own history of cowboys and frontier state independence. But there are no cowboys in Dallas, not even the football kind. Cultural homogenization has won. It’s like any other big city, except a president got killed here and we’ve been trying to outrun that for over 50 years. The rest of the South has been trying to outrun its past for 150 years, so they have a head start.
So how does a Midwesterner who became an adopted Texan fall in love with a band from Athens, Georgia lead by two guys from northern Alabama? The essence of the Drive-By Truckers is trying to make sense of your surroundings when you feel like you don’t quite fit in. Patterson Hood hits on this in what is probably the closest thing to an autobiographical song in “The Three Great Alabama Icons”. I moved to Texas and didn’t quite fit in. I still don’t. Sure, I can play the part. I can pull off wearing boots out in public and can make some mean birria tacos and pico de gallo. I even learned to two-step without tripping over myself for my wedding. Despite all that, I still say to myself on a weekly basis, “what the hell am I doing here?” Things that would seem strange or horrific to most Americans are just a daily occurrence in the Lone Star State. I could live here the rest of my life and I would still look at Texas with a little bit of side-eye.
Most people here say something like “I was so honored when Christopher reached out to me to name my top 5 whateve..” Me, I just kind of volunteered myself, leaving a comment that if he wanted to do a top 5 DBT and/or Hood/Cooley/Isbell solo songs, I was his guy. It never hurts to ask, or in my case insert myself into someone else’s newsletter. I did set a couple rules for picking my songs. Two songs from Patterson Hood. Two songs from Mike Cooley. One song from Jason Isbell. And only one song per album. So here we go with the Southern Thing.
Where the Devil Don’t Stay - The Dirty South (2004)
Probably the first DBT song I remember listening to. There is an online radio station called Radio Free Texas that I used to listen to while at work. At this point it was sometime in 2007. And after moving to a smallish town in Texas, I realized that System of a Down was not coming to play anywhere near me and if I wanted to go a concert, my options were Red Dirt music and…well…that’s it. I was sitting in my office half listening when I heard the drums hit. The drums in the intro gave me the same vibes as Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” and at that point I was hooked. Cooley’s song tells the story of probation, bootleggers, and the hypocrisy of the 1% - something I learned would be a recurring theme in DBT songs. The rich people come to the woods for poker and illegal moonshine, but it’s the poor ‘shiners that the law hauls away. The thumping drums and down-tuned guitar opened up a new world for me.
Zip City - Southern Rock Opera (2001)
Possibly the DBT song I relate to the most, the story of getting out. Not that I had a cool car in high school, or a girlfriend in another town and relationship that may or may not survive when we go to college (or in the case of the song start a band) but this song, more than any, speaks to my DBT thesis of a band trying to make sense of its surroundings. The character in the song is trapped in small town with a girlfriend he doesn’t seem to really like. There’s a sense of longing that things aren’t quite right and the only way to know for sure is to get out.
Decoration Day - Decoration Day (2003)
The sole Jason Isbell song on the list and one of my favorites from both his DBT and solo catalog. I’ve been lucky that he’s played it every time I’ve seen Isbell live. Isbell has confirmed the song is based on family history, a feud between two families that’s been going on for so long nobody really knows what started it. For me, the key to the song is the bridge. Isbell’s character has recalled the family feud and wondered what exactly is it all for? When we get to the bridge2, he’s left town to avoid the fighting, he no longer wants any part of whatever his dad has cooked up. It’s cost the family too much. And even as the character thinks his dead dad got what was coming to him, he still feels compelled to carry on the feud.
The Righteous Path - Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (2008)
Brighter Than Creation’s Dark was the first new DBT album I got to hear. I do regret I wasn’t listening to them during what most people would consider the classic lineup period, a three-guitar attack with Hood, Cooley, and Isbell. Unlike the character in Decoration Day, trapped in a generational blood feud, Hood’s character here is just trying to get by. I’ve wondered if Hood wrote this song as a response to the financial collapse in 2007-08. The timing is a little off, most of us associate the economy melting down with 2008, but it started in 2007. The song starts by recounting what the character has going for him, and it goes down hill from there. He’s not rich, but he’s got a wife and kids. He’s got it better than his neighbor, and he’s at least still trying. I think about the song a lot when things aren’t going right. I’m fortunate that when things aren’t going right lately, they’re generally minor inconveniences in the grand scheme of things.
This Fucking Job - The Big To-Do (2010)
The fifth song was the hardest to pick. As soon as Christopher said he’d love to do the Top 5 DBT songs with me, I knew my first four right away. There are plenty of songs I could have chosen for the fifth song, but they don’t work with the parameters I set for myself, so here we are. It’s a track that’s both of a time and place, the aftermath of the housing market collapsing the economy, and at the same time it feels timeless. 37% of Americans couldn’t afford an emergency $400 bill. I had a job I hated and then I got laid off. I was lucky that I found another one quickly, and quite frankly losing that job improved my mental health immensely. I hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten.
There’s a decent argument to be made this song is a sequel for “The Righteous Path.” Or maybe the songs are cousins. If Hood’s character in “The Righteous Path” is just trying to keep his head above water and fly right, the character in this song has already lost. He did everything right but he’s still stuck in a dead-end job, it’s soul-crushing but he’s at least doing the bare minimum to survive. Then it’s gone. And you’re left wondering how you fit in an uncaring world.
My Top 5
A note about Jason Isbell: Isbell writes some of the best songs out there, and the ones he wrote while in DBT are no exception, however, I chose to focus on the work of the so-called “Dimmer Twins” of Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, as they have been the main creative force behind the band since its inception.
One of the first two DBT songs I had ever heard, “Gravity’s Gone” has that big country twang and Mike Cooley’s clever lyricism that is present on so many DBT songs. All due respect to Patterson Hood, but Mike Cooley “Stroker Ace” writes a lot of bangers—this one is no exception. It is a song about someone down and out, whether that be from his/her own poor decision making or just a rough patch in life. It also features one of the best stanzas of all time:
And don’t ever let them make you feel saying what you want is unbecoming. If you were supposed watch your mouth all the time, I doubt your eyes would be above it.
I think I listened to this song so much when I started listening to DBT that I wore deeper grooves into my copy of A Blessing and a Curse.
The first time I listened to this song I immediately honed in on its cynical nature and deep meaning around the state of pop culture and the music scene in the late 80s early 90s. Not only is it an earworm, but it really takes on how glam metal, hair metal, and late arena rock were still taking off and then all of a sudden, grunge happened. While I was alive then, I was but a toddler, so I can’t say I observed this in real time, but I am sure there are a few readers here that did.
The song is written from the point of a view of an observer that may or may not be Cooley himself as he was getting into music seriously at that time. Really though, the themes present in this song can be applied to any musical era—I mean back in my day of the early to mid aughts we went from pop-friendly alt rock to emo and screamo so fast that I still can’t figure out when exactly it happened.
This song is a real bop and I am still sad that the band did not play it live when I saw them in 2016. It has some of the best lyrics and really highlights Cooley at his best. I mean, just listen to that chorus:
Shit shots count if the table's tilted
Just pay the man who levels the floor
Pride's what you charge a proud man for having
Shame is what you sell to a whore
Meat's just meat, and it's all born dying
Some is tender and some is tough
Somebody's gotta mop up the A-1
Somebody's gotta mop up the blood
I honestly never thought of paying the man that levels the floor until I heard this song. Anyway, some of the other lyrics are excellent as well, I lived in the south hills of Pittsburgh for a 3-year spell while in law school and anyone that has ever driven on Rt. 19 can identify with this set of lyrics:
Suburban four lanes move like blood
Through an old man's dying heart
Enough at a time to keep hope alive
At the speed of a stream of tar
Somebody get Mike Cooley a goddamn Pulitzer.
Many people, myself included, have criticized the overt political nature and theme the band has recently taken on, however it is important to remember that they have always been a political band. Some just like the historical lens rather than tunes about times we are quite literally living in. Southern Rock Opera is a fictional re-telling of the legend of Lynyrd Skynrd, except the band is Betamax Guillotine and the album itself explores what Hood affectionally refers to as “The duality of the southern thing”. I remember watching the documentary about the band called The Secret to a Happy Ending and seeing Hood’s father (and Swampers bassist) David Hood discuss how that phrase blew his mind.
“Ronnie and Neil” had a manufactured rap but not rap beef that began in 1970 when Neil Young wrote “Southern Man” about the turbulent times in the American South, but Young was Canadian, and as most southerners are apt to remind everyone, their legacy and their culture isn’t just tied to how the south is depicted in popular culture. Much of that awful shit did and does still happen, however, as Hood sings:
Meanwhile in North Alabama
Lynyrd Skynyrd comes to town
To record with Jimmy Johnson
At Muscle Shoals SoundAnd they met some real fine people
Not no racist pieces of shit
And they wrote a song about it
And that song became a hit
Lest we forget that this so-called conflict between the two was purely manufactured by the same elements that depict the entire south as racist pieces of shit—Neil Young and Ronnie Van Zant were friends, and Young was an honorary pallbearer at his funeral. As Hood often notes, “such is the duality of the southern thing.”
This one is another great Patterson Hood track that is semi-autobiographical. His great uncle served in the Pacific Theater during the war and Hood sings about how he grew up on the family homestead in North Alabama observing George A talking to his friends at veteran get togethers and how he “could not comprehend” their discussions. That is some heavy shit for a kid, man.
But what the song is really about is how war is glorified in the movies by macho dipshits like John Wayne et. al. who never served while Hood’s great uncle answered the call despite his responsibilities at home on the family farm—and also how Hood as a kid would watch that movie and ask his great uncle if that’s how it really was:
Every year in June, George A. goes to a reunion
Of the men that he served with and their wives and kids and grandkids
My great uncle used to take me and I'd watch them recollect
About some things that I could not comprehend
And I thought about that movie, asked if it was that way
He just shook his head and smiled at me in such a loving way
As he thought about some friends he will never see again
He said "I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima"
What’s your top 5 Drive-By Truckers songs? If you have never listened, there are 10 great songs mentioned here to start with, trust me—you’ll want to keep digging thereafter.
There used to be a monument within 10 minutes of my house. There are still people mad that it’s gone.
I’m calling it a bridge even though the song doesn’t follow a typical verse/chorus/verse format.
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Hell yeah! Thanks for letting me crash your newsletter, Christopher. It was a lot of fun. I was really close to "Shit Shots Count" being my 5th song. It was on the list of contenders.
Women Without Whiskey
Love Like This
Panties In Your Purse
Never Gonna Change
The Opening Act