Doug Paisley – “What About Us”

1. Don’t let the organ intro or the odd cover art fool you: Doug Paisley knows heartbreak, and he knows it well. This song, from his self-titled first record, might be the saddest thing I have heard in a while, and that is not a bad thing. Paisley defines country slightly differently than the average singer, but the emotional payoff hits just as hard. Though not a typical country instrument, the Optigan organ serves as a thin disguise to what lies beneath.

2. “What about us?” Paisley pines, likening the salvation of his relationship to “drawing the impossible from the air.” He implores his other half to consider staying “in spite of all the reasons and the cares”, only alluding to the history that has brought them to this point. Showing the distance that has grown between them, Paisley admits that he understands his partner “the best [he] can”. Talking a self-deprecating tack, he admits that he just doesn’t believe, even proclaiming that he will “never learn”.

3. This song seems in many ways like it doesn’t make sense — the thoughts don’t seem fully developed, Paisley seems a bit here and there. In that confusion, however, Paisley manages to sum up the feeling of heartbreak, where nothing quite makes sense, and one ends up grasping at excuses in vain, trying to make something work. This track is probably most reminiscent of something from Phases and Stages: concise, brutally honest, and devastating. It is refreshing that someone in country music understands what it means to really feel broken down, like Doug Paisley conveys in this track.

Doug Paisley – “What About Us?”

Posted: June 22nd, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Five Records With… Patterson Hood

I had the opportunity to interview Patterson Hood about some records that keep him going. I covered his band, the Drive-By Truckers’ latest record The Big To Do here. Five Records is an occasional feature of artists talking about the music that inspires them. Read more of these posts here.

Elton John

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

“When I was a kid, it was Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.I was 8 when I started writing songs and that was 1973. My dad had both of those albums and I played them all the time.Later on Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything? album and The Clash’s London Calling that sort of set my mind to how it’s done.”

Neil Young

Tonight’s the Night

“I’m obviously a big Neil Young fan and really love Tonight’s The Night. He was best known for making kinda countryish mellow, kinda pleasing music and his mental state deteriorated due to some bad times and instead of pretending it was all right, he followed his muse and made a very difficult album. It sold very poorly at the time but is certainly held as a masterpiece by some of us out there.”

Willie Nelson

Phases and Stages

“I can’t think of any single album that directly related to The Big To Do. A lot of it was written on the road and the stereo on the bus is usually playing some old soul album but when I’ writing I tend to try not to be listening to anything in particular. I have in recent months been listening to a lot of Iron and Wine, Spoon, Willie Nelson’s Phases and Stages album and Dylan’s last album but our new album doesn’t sound anything like any of those albums.”

Curtis Mayfield

Superfly

“There’s a lot of songs I really admire but no one could ever write someone else’s song (at least not the songs I tend to love). So much of what makes a song is how the inspiration is filtered through the writers psyche and imagination. I am a really great big admirer of Curtis Mayfield and love how he did the soundtrack/score to Superfly, taking the context of that story and turning it around to suit his own point of view but still being totally true to the subject matter and in the process taking the subject to a much greater and higher artistic height. “Freddies Dead” is a masterpiece.”

Girls

Album

“I’ve been really digging Album by Girls a lot. It’s a really cool album. I’d really like to see them live.”

Patterson Hood – Pollyanna

Posted: April 2nd, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Five Records With… Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller

I had the chance to talk to Rhett Miller the other day before his show with Salim Nourallah at the House of Blues. The always exuberant front man of the Old 97’s released his third, self titled solo record last summer, and it is not to be missed. Five Records is an occasional feature of artists talking about the music that inspires them. Read more of these posts here.

The Kingston Trio

From the Hungry I

“My parents were into the Kingston Trio, and I got into it as a young kid. I think about what I love about playing – so much of it is the energy, to be able to translate a song into this thing that gets everyone in the room. This was recorded at this little folk club in San Francisco, all acoustic instruments, and they just ROCK, just really high energy. The between song banter is so funny – I quote this line all the time — they come back from their encore and he says “You can tell by the speed of our return that that exit was fraudulent.” I just love that.”

Willie Nelson

Stardust

“I love Willie, I’ve gone on his bus several times and gotten to be good friends with Mickey Raphael, his harp player. I admire him so much because he is a writer first — he could easily stay home and live off the royalties from any one of his hits, much less all of them. He does lots of weird stuff, but at this point, he’s earned it. He is a great interpreter, he does other people’s stuff and it doesn’t seem like a cash grab.”

The Clash

London Calling

“Making this last record with Salim Nourallah, we listened to London Calling a lot. I thought my new record was going to be quiet, and it ended up being very rock and roll. We were torn about the sequencing, something I love to do but something that usually ends up being pretty difficult. This album is a masterpiece, and so is the title track that opens it, which goes into “Brand New Cadillac”, so you have back-to-back rockers. We ended up putting “Nobody Says I Love You Anymore” as the opening track, and it goes into “Like Love”, and they are similar, with the big drum things happening, and it felt so right.”

Okkervil River

The Stage Names

“Thinking of songs I wish I had written, its easy to say something like “Waterloo Sunset”, which is just genius. Lately, I’ve gotten familiar with several Okkervil River songs that have had that effect on me. It’s really high energy, but so simple at the same time.”

Telegraph Canyon

The Tide and the Current

“I really love Telegraph Canyon, from Fort Worth. Their new record is great, really big, very cool. I watched them sound check the other day and they were like “We’re getting some feedback from the tiny dog piano”, like its a completely normal instrument that everyone has. A great big orchestrated adventurous sound.”

Rhett Miller – I Need To Know Where I Stand

Posted: October 16th, 2009 | No Comments »