• 5. “Brand New Heartache” – The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

  Jeff Hanna sings “I swore that the last time/I’d learned from my mistakes/But I think I’m headed for a brand new heartache.” Perhaps he should form a support group with the other artists on this list, as they all appear to have the same learning disability.

• 4. “This New Heartache” – Vince Gill

  There’s no better soundtrack to a new heartache than an old country song, says Gill on this classic sounding track from These Days. Listening while curled in the fetal position, a bottle of Evan Williams cradled against your chest is purely optional.

• 3. “Brand New Heartache” – Cherryholmes

  According to Cherryholmes patriarch Jere, banjo-pickin’ daughter Cia “never had a boyfriend or been on a date or anything,” yet was still able to write this excellent bluegrass song about being done wrong by a fella. (Link)

• 2. “I’ve Got A New Heartache” – Ray Price

  The smooth-voiced Price has a new heartache over an old sweetheart who’s back in town. The version below is a duet between Gene Pitney and George Jones, no slouches in the vocal department either.

• 1. “Brand New Heartache” – Gram Parsons

  This “Brand New Heartache,” written by husband and wife team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant (”Rocky Top,” “Sleepless Nights,”), takes the Number One spot on today’s list thanks to the magical combination of Gram and Emmylou. A new guy moves into town and your gal is three hours late for your date? And the same thing happened last time a dude moved in next door? Sounds like a brand new heartache to me.

• Honorable Mention: “If Love Was a Plane” – Brad Paisley

  If love were actually a plane, Paisley says, most of us would be flying Buddy Holly Airlines.

• 5. “One Last Time” – Dusty Drake

  Remember this guy? “One Last Time” is an incredibly depressing song about a man who calls his wife as his plane is going down, but it was also Drake’s highest charting single from his self-titled debut album.

• 4. “I Never Did Like Planes” – Robbie Fulks

  My favorite version of this song is from Fulks’ countrypolitan album Georgia Hard, though those who’d like a more traditional sound should check out Dallas Wayne’s take on it. Either way, this song about a just-dumped fella flying the unfriendly skies is a sad one.

• 3. “Outbound Plane” – Tom Russell

  “Outbound Plane,” written by Russell and Nanci Griffith (originally on her album Little Love Affairs) is an upbeat, sing-in-the-shower type song, but the lyric itself is kind of a downer, what with the whole “Talk is cheap/So we could talk all night long/We may never figure out just where our love went wrong.” Suzy Bogguss’ version went to #9 in 1991.

• 2. “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” – Highwaymen

  In the late ’40s, a plane carrying 28 migrant workers crashed, leading Woody Guthrie to pen these lyrics and give names to those who were ignored in the press coverage of the tragedy. On this version, the Highwaymen are joined by Johnny Rodriguez.

• 1. “Boulder to Birmingham” – Emmylou Harris

  This aching, gorgeous tribute to Gram Parsons, from seminal album Pieces of the Sky technically isn’t about planes, but who can forget its opening lines “I don’t want to hear a love song/I got on this airplane just to fly.”

• 5. “Four Walls” – Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys
  With his girl drawn to bright lights and good times, this guy sits at home with the walls closing in on him. Poor fella. Maybe he should get a dog or a hobby or something, because talking to walls is the first sign of crazy hermitdom.
• 4. “Tonight I Climbed the Wall” – Alan Jackson
  The wall in this song is metaphorical, representing the emotional distance between two lovers. The second single from A Lot About Livin’ (And A Little ‘Bout Love) went all the way to #4 in 1992. Try not to be freaked out by the mustache-less Jackson in the music video.
• 3. “Walls of Time” – Paul Burch
  That Bill Monroe sure liked to sing about walls. Here Burch, supported by The Pine Valley Cosmonauts, delivers a mopey alt-country cover of the Monroe/Peter Rowan-penned song. Other excellent cover versions come from the Johnson Mountain Boys (featured below), Emmylou Harris and quite a few others.
• 2. “The Wall” – Johnny Cash
  Escape attempt or suicide? Cash suggests it’s the latter in this prison song. Interestingly enough, the clip below is from a late ’80s performance in Berlin.
• 1. “Hello Walls” – Faron Young
  If the guy in Monroe’s “Four Walls” spends a few more nights in the same situation, he’ll end up like the dude in this song, talking not just to the walls, but windows and ceilings as well. Perhaps the most important wall song in country music, “Hello Walls” was a massive hit for Young in the 1961, and helped its songwriter, Willie Nelson, make a name for himself.

• 20. “Thank God For The Road” – The Flatlanders
  “When you’re trying to save your own soul/Thank God for the road.” Spoken like a group of true road warriors.
• 19. “Thank You For A Life” – Kris Kristofferson
  After the life he’s led, Kristofferson is probably thankful just to be alive at all.
• 18. “Lucky Stars” – JP McDermott & Western Bop
  DC’s red-hot rockabilly man JP McDermott tackles this Buddy Holly-meets-The-Mavericks song written by Western Bop guitarist Bob Newscaster.

(more…)

• 5. “The Day Before Halloween” – Casey Driessen
  Casey Driessen sure can coax some spooky sounds out of his five-string fiddle. On his 2009 album Oog, this song immediately follows similarly eerie “Conversation With Death.”
• 4. “Undead Blues” – Unknown Hinson
  Self-proclaimed King of the Country & Western Troubadours “made out with a vampire gal” and ended up in his current predicament which includes an allergy to sunlight and a penchant for drinking a certain fluid.

• 3. “I Kept Her Heart” – Pine Box Boys
  If you’re a fan of Hank III and similar acts, you really should be listening to these California murdergrassers. The feller in this song holds his wife’s heart in the palm of his hand…literally. Creeeeeepy.

• 2. “Keep Them Cold, Icy Fingers Off Of Me” – Pee Wee King
  Bill Jackson is something else. He doesn’t mind your naked bones, your hollers or your moans, but icy fingers? That’s a dealbreaker. Also check out versions from Homer & Jethro and the Stanley Brothers.

• 1. “Vampira” – Bobby Bare
  Bobby Bare is to Vampira as Tyler Dean is to Taylor Swift. Only, you know, better.
  He pays tribute to television’s campy, marvelous horror host (played by Maila Nurmi) with this 1958 scream-filled rock & roll number. Unpleasant dreams, darlings.

Honorable Mentions: Punch Brothers – “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”; Kenny Rogers – “The Greatest”; Wilco – “Joe Dimaggio Done it Again.”

• 5. “Cheap Seats” – Alabama
  “Cheap Seats,” the title track from a 1993 Alabama record is all about the joys of watching Triple A ball. Randy sings the praises of flat beer and dogs with mustard and relish, noting “We don’t worry about the pennant much/We just like to see the boys hit it deep/There’s nothing like the view from the cheap seats.”

• 4. “715 (For Hank Aaron)” – Peter Cooper

  Cooper looks at racism through the lens of America’s Pastime with this song about Aaron, a man who faced hate mail and death threats, but spoke “with his bat and not his mouth.” Remember when athletes did that?

• 3. “America’s Favorite Pastime” – Todd Snider
  On this bluesy track from The Excitement Plan, Snider relates the story of the late Dock Ellis, a Pirates pitcher who threw a no-hitter while allegedly on LSD. After he retired, Ellis became a drug counselor, interestingly enough.
• 2. “Iron and Diamonds” – The Gibson Brothers
  Upstate New Yorkers Eric and Leigh wrote this song about the region’s iron miners, who found some respite from their hardscrabble lives in baseball: “Sons followed steps down to the mines/Behind dads they never knew/They came alive between the foul lines/With pride and dignity/In the bleachers and the batter’s box/A miner could be free.”
• 1. “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” – Steve Goodman
  My beloved Fightin’ Phils may be the losingest team in professional sports, but there’s a whole different kind of masochism involved in root, root, rooting for the Cubbies, a team who hasn’t won a World Series in over a century. The “City of New Orleans” scribe sings all about the heartache associated with the ballclub and “their ivy-covered burial ground” in this 1983 song.

• 5. “Down on Penny’s Farm” – The Bently Boys
  That George Penny sure sounds like a prince: “he’ll work you all summer and rob you in the fall”. The Bently Boys recorded this sharecropping song in 1929; Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers later recorded it as “Down on Tanner’s Farm.”
  
• 4. “Big Boss Man” – Kentucky Headhunters
  The Kentucky Headhunters cover Elvis Presley covering Jimmy Reed. Turns out that a few country artists liked “Big Boss Man” enough to record their own versions, and one pro wrestler liked it enough to use it as his ring name.
• 3. “Take This Job and Shove It” – Johnny Paycheck
  The foreman’s a meanie with a new flattop (the preferred hairdo of staid authority figures everywhere), but one day Johnny’ll make him pay. How? I’m a little afraid to ask.
• 2. “John Henry” – Bruce Springsteen
  It was the boss who brought that steam drill around in the first place. Based on my years of watching Law & Order, I think that makes him somewhat culpable in ol’ John Henry’s death.
• 1. “Oney” – Johnny Cash
  When it comes to boss songs, “Oney” is the best; Cash sings about a new retiree and his plans on getting revenge for 29 years of mistreatment. The song ends before the plan is actually enacted, but Cash’s cackle as “Oney” fades out leaves the listener with a good mental picture of what’s about to go down.
  

• 5. “When Doves Cry” – Be Good Tanyas

  The Purple One gets the folk treatment here from the Be Good Tanyas on their 2006 album Hello Love, 22 years after “When Doves Cry” topped the charts. Really, these women should be applauded for managing to sing the lyric “Touch, if you will, my stomach” without bursting into giggles.

• 4. “Time After Time” – Willie Nelson
  2002’s The Great Divide wasn’t that great, save one or two songs. Sadly, this version of “Time After Time” isn’t one of them.
• 3. “It’s a Heartache” – Trick Pony
  I love this song in all its cheesy glory. Juice Newton was the first to record it in ‘77, but Bonnie Tyler’s version was the bigger hit. However, Heidi and the boys took their cover to #22 on the country charts and made a hilariously overdramatic video.

• 2. “Drives Me Crazy” – Dolly Parton
  This cover from Backwoods Barbie is pretty straightforward, but Dolly adds a nifty little bluegrass breakdown, and her voice blows the Fine Young Cannibals out of the ater.

• 1. “I Drove All Night” – Pinmonkey
  This is a good song no matter who’s singing it. Roy Orbison–who actually recorded the song first, but released it after Cyndi Lauper made it a hit—does a fine job on his version, and the early-’90s-tastic video starring Jason Priestley deserves mention. Pinmonkey barely broke the Top 40 with their version and then faded away. It’s a damn shame too; country music needs more bands with Simpsons-influenced names.

• 26. “Shine” – Matt Stillwell
  With a name like Stillwell, you better believe this guy’s got some knowledge of the homebrew. On his debut single he advocates taking a few sips from a mason jar to start the morning off right after a night spent boozing it up and listening to Bocephus in a hayfield.
• 25. “White Lightning Hit the Family Tree” – Chris Young
  A little bit of moonshine livens up a family reunion: Granny’s slurring her words, there’s shouting matches over college football, and a food fight. Aren’t most reunions like that even without the benefit of homemade grain alcohol?
• 24. “Moonshine And Indian Blood” – Billy Joe Shaver
  On Shaver’s website, there’s an interview with co-writer Tony Colton about this song’s inception:

  David Briggs, who used to play piano for Elvis Presley, is a very famous Memphis keyboard player. Well, he and Billy Joe were having a bit of a Mexican standoff, an argument which was getting worse as the night went on (because there was drink involved). It erupted into a fight. We managed to separate them, two big boisterous boys, you know. We got David out of the way, and we got Billy Joe back to the apartment. The rest of us were all sitting around the table thanking our lucky stars that it hadn’t gotten worse, because David Briggs had pulled a gun out at one point, and I said, “Well that’s just moonshine and Indian blood for you,” because Billy Joe is part Indian. And I got straight up from the table and walked to the phone and dropped a quarter in and called Billy Joe and said, “I’ve got a song for us.” He said, “What is it?” and I said, “Moonshine and Indian Blood,” and he said “Get over here now!” (laughs) And that’s what we did, we wrote it straight after the fight.

  Is anyone surprised by this?

• 23. “Mississippi Mud” – Hank Williams III
  III knows a little something about illegal substances. On this song from Lovesick, Broke, and Drifting, he sings the praises of Georgia moonshine swilled “straight out of the jug.”
• 22. “Moonshine Blues” – Moon Mullican
  This is a jaunty little piano tune, the kind that’d be great to dance along to once you’ve got a few drinks in your system.
• 21. “Kentucky Moonshine” – Pure Prairie League
  Here’s a tender love song directed towards booze…and maybe some girl. Ironically, the band’s name comes from a fictional women’s temperance group featured in the film Dodge City.
• 20. “Where The Devil Don’t Stay” – Drive-By Truckers
  What would a seminal Southern Rock album like The Dirty South be without a moonshine song, especially one that’s based on a poem? Here Mike Cooley sings about a few consequences of moonshining, like being locked up so far down “even the devil won’t stay.”
• 19. “Franklin County Moonshine” – Jean Shepard
  Sassy Jean Shepard tells the story of a wife who wishes her man had never started up a still. Not only is it all he thinks about, but it’s turning her black hair gray. But who knows: maybe he’ll make enough money to afford some Miss Clairol. Problem solved.
• 18. “Copper Kettle” – Chet Atkins
  Damn the 18th century man! The family in this Joan Baez folksong hasn’t paid a whiskey tax since 1792, which was smack dab in the middle of the Whiskey Rebellion.
• 17. “Daddy’s Moonshine Still” – Dolly Parton
  A father’s moonshine business ruins a family: two sons die on a run, and the narrator of this song is forced to engage in unsavory activities to support loved ones, singing “I sent mama money near every day/How I made it, I’d rather not say.”
• 16. “Moonshiner” – Uncle Tupelo
  Jay Farrar and the boys covered this traditional ’shine song on their largely acoustic record March 16-20, 1992. Allison Moorer’s another alt-country type who covers it beautifully.
• 15. “The Old Home Brew” – Dixon Brothers
  Country singers/textile mill workers Howard and Dorsey Dixon sang this catchy (and kinda patriotic) little tune celebrating the end of Prohibition while simultaneously wondering what they’re going to do with all that leftover rotgut now that they can return to delicious manufactured beer.
• 14. “Canned Heat Blues” – Tommy Johnson
  Drinking liquefied Sterno? Probably not the best idea, which is why there’s a mournful Depression-era blues song about it. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
• 13. “Ballad Of Thunder Road” – Mark Collie
  This is a cover of the theme song from late ’50s moonshine movie Thunder Road, starring Robert Mitchum. Even if you haven’t heard the song, chances are you’ll know how it ends once you hear the lyric in which a father begs his son to “make this run [his] last.” Final runs never end well in country music.
• 12. “Prohibition is a Failure” – New Lost City Ramblers
  The NLCR cut a whole album of boozy excellence in the early ’60s with American Moonshine and Prohibition. The record includes songs like “Bootlegger’s Story,” and “Whiskey Seller,” but this is my personal favorite. Be sure to check YouTube for Lowe Stokes’ 1929 version of the song.
• 11. “Whiskey In The Jar” – Jerry Garcia & David Grisman
  A traditional Irish folksong about a stickup guy done wrong by a woman gets the acoustic treatment from Jerry and David on their album Shady Grove. The rockers around here might know the Thin Lizzy or Metallica versions.
• 10. “Moonshine Kate” – Fiddlin’ John Carson
  His daughter, Rosa Lee, took the stage name Moonshine Kate and performed with her dad in a number of comedic skits, including this one. My favorite exchange? “Q: Do [your parents] make whiskey to sell? A:They don’t make it to give away.”
• 9. “Jake Walk Blues” – Allen Brothers
  What’s jake? Jamaican ginger extract, one of many “dubious but harmless patent medicines” Americans relied on, not only to treat everything from headaches to constipation, but also get around temperance laws. Plus, it was often cheaper and of a higher proof than real booze, and it was apparently kind of tasty. To discourage non-medicinal use, the government began regulating jake, requiring more ginger solids in each bottle to make it a bitter “black syrup.” In the ’30s, a pair of bootleggers/jake distributors added tri-ortho-cresyl phosphate, a tasteless plasticizing compound to the jake in order to get past the government inspectors. It turns out that this compound attacked the central nervous system and spinal cord, causing partial paralysis, muscle atrophy, and a distinctive walk among those unlucky enough to drink the doctored jake. Yeah, that’d give anyone the blues. Luckily the Allen boys throw some kazoo in this Mississippi Sheiks song to cheer you up.
• 8. “Copperhead Road” – Steve Earle
  This Southern rocker is a heartwarming tale of multigenerational distribution of illegal substances. Aww! They should make a movie about the Pettimore clan and show it every Christmas.
• 7. “Cannon County Hills” – Uncle Dave Macon
  Broadway may have bright lights, but Cannon County has moonshine. Cannon County 1, Broadway 0.
• 6. “Dooley” – The Dillards
  Dooley’s moonshine is a family business, with the daughters tending the still and mama corking the bottles. And when ol’ Dooley dies, he’s buried with a jug beside him and a barrel for his headstone while the menfolk sob.
• 5. “Tear My Stillhouse Down” – Gillian Welch
  In lieu of flowers or donations to a favorite charity, this lady’s last wishes are that her loved ones put an end to the “hiding place where [she] made that evil stuff.” Also, better pass the word onto the kiddos that “Hell ain’t no dream/’Cause Satan he lives in [that] whiskey machine.”
• 4. “Rocky Top” – Osborne Brothers
  These brother duos sure love their alcohol songs. Recorded in 1967 by the Kentucky-born Bobby and Sonny, it’s since been covered by a legion of artists from all genres. It’s a peppy little song, but a word of advice: if you’re a stranger, don’t prowl around Rocky Top looking for a still. It might not end well.
• 3. “Chug-a-Lug” – Roger Miller
  There’s nothing quite like that first underage sip. In 1964, this single made both country and pop Top 10 lists. Hidee ho, indeed.
• 2. “Mountain Dew” – Grandpa Jones
  The ’shine in this traditional song is so potent that the birds flying over the still become too plastered to fly. Don’t like Grandpa Jones? Take your pick from the dozens of other artists who’ve recorded it too.
• 1. “White Lightning” – George Jones
  A song that’s immediately recognizable from its intro, “White Lightning” is one of Jones’ best, and this month’s Numero Uno song. He’s also recorded a song looking at things from the other side of the law: “Revenooer Man” (Alan Jackson does a nice version too). These days, Possum’s peddling his own form of White Lightning that’s about as far from “Pappy’s corn squeezin’” as you can get: bottled water.
]]> http://www.the9513.com/26-songs-about-moonshine/feed/ 8 http://www.the9513.com/friday-five-books/ http://www.the9513.com/friday-five-books/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:08:46 +0000 Juli Thanki http://www.the9513.com/?p=8732 Banned Books Week is coming to a close. Books are pretty cool (so is having the freedom to read them), so today we’re paying tribute to a few, along with a couple of authors.
• 5. “Storybook Children” – Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez
  Taylor wrote this one with Billy Vera, and recorded it with Rodriguez for Let’s Leave This Town. Now, when Taylor and Rodriguez wonder “why can’t we be like storybook children,” they’re probably not talking about the characters in Grimm’s Fairy Tales that are far more gruesome than the Disney versions would have you believe. Nancy Sinatra, Don Williams, and a handful of others have recorded their own versions of “Storybook Children,” should you wish to give those a listen as well.
• 4. “L.A. County Blues” – Band of Heathens
  Writer Hunter S. Thompson, about whom this song was written, has been quoted as saying “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.” He’d have made a fine country songwriter.
• 3. “Hemingway’s Whiskey” – Guy Clark
  It’s no secret that American literature’s manliest man loved his booze. And as Clark sings, “If it was bad enough for him/It’s bad enough for me.” That’s probably as far as a person should go in his desire to emulate Papa Hemingway: he was quite the troubled feller.
• 2. “Sylvia Plath” – Ryan Adams
  Before he became Mr. Mandy Moore, Adams wished for a Sylvia Plath, a woman with a “busted tooth and a smile” who’d get loaded on gin and then give him a bath. He doesn’t mention that whole head in the oven thing, but it’s still a pretty good song.
• 1. “Tom Joad Part I and Tom Joan Part II” – Woody Guthrie
  Why read all 300 pages of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath when you can listen to his pal Guthrie’s seven-minute recap? Answer: because Steinbeck is one cool dude, and a helluva writer. What were his thoughts on the song? Ed Cray’s Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie cites a 1978 interview where Steinbeck complained “that [expletive deleted]! In 17 verses he got the entire story of a thing that took me two years to write!”
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