Drive-By Truckers – “George Jones Talkin’ Cell Phone Blues”
1. It is quite hard to write a funny song that avoids being cheesy, even harder to write one that has any sense of poignancy. With that as a measure of success, Patterson Hood succeeds on this track from the Drive-By Truckers new odds and ends collection The Fine Print. What sets Hood apart is the stinging wit with which he tells the story, and how he manages to place the event in the context of Jones’ life. John Neff’s humming pedal steel sets the scene as Jones’ hits the gas on the Mercedes and flirts with the afterlife.
2. Hood tells the story of Jones crashing into an overpass (which happened in 1999) as if he was filling George in from the side of his hospital bed, brilliantly switching to tell the other side of the story when “all of a sudden there was just dialtone” to illuminate the fear of the person on the other end of the line. Hood then makes an important connection between the “old days in the honky tonks” and “that last shot of vodka” — the recklessness with which Jones apparently still lives his life. “If you don’t change your ways, my friend” Hood imparts, “You’ll be singin’ duets with Tammy again”.
3. This is the same band that once did an entire double record loosely based on the tragic rise and fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and understands the futility of the loss of great talent. Hood sarcastically tells Jones that he could be “another dead genius country star”, and means none of it as a compliment. However harsh his criticism of Jones, Patterson shows his true appreciation of the man when he skips the second line of his chorus hook to juxtapose “my friend, George Jones”. Though he expresses his caution for the aging star, Hood simultaneously realizes that some honky-tonkers never change, and that’s exactly the way it should be.
This song really is great.
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