• 6. “Bury Me With My Car” – Ben Sollee

  Cellist Sollee, one quarter of the Sparrow Quartet, released this tongue in cheek ode to four wheels on his solo debut Learning How to Bend. Who wouldn’t want to be buried with their beloved automobile? Well, probably Ben Sollee, for one: he’s an avowed bicyclist and biked over 300 miles (with his cello) to Bonnaroo last year as part of his “Pedaling Against Poverty” project.

• 5. “Bury Me Far (From My Uniform)” – Joe Pug

  Pug’s Dylanesque anti-war song finds him singing from the perspective of a dead soldier who rages against Congress and the rich: “I fought their battles in this world/I’ll not fight for them in the next/Do not find me justice/Just find me a grave/And then bury me far from my uniform/So God might remember my face.”

• 4. “Bury Me” – Dwight Yoakam Duet with Maria McKee

  On this duet with Maria McKee from Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., Yoakam’s a man gone astray, begging “Now don’t you mourn for me when my soul is free/Woman, don’t you cry/Just bury me along the Big Sandy/Under a blue Kentucky sky.” It’s less depressing when you’ve got some Bakersfield-influenced music in the background.

• 3. “Bury The Bottle With Me” – Dick Curless

  A man’s drinking kept him from ever having a wife or family, so when he dies, he requests that they stick his beloved bottle in the casket with him so he “won’t be alone tonight.” Curless took this single to #55 in 1968. More recently, Robbie Fulks covered it on 13 Hillbilly Giants

• 2. “O Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie” – Sons of The Pioneers

  A dying cowboy requests to be buried by his father’s grave. However, none of his cowboy pals want to haul this guy’s corpse back home—especially since they probably didn’t have access to embalming fluid—so they stick him under some prairie dirt and throw a marker on top of it. Then he haunts the crap out of them. No, not really, but wouldn’t you?

  Johnny Cash, Moe Bandy, Burl Ives, and a few dozen others have recorded this song (also called “The Dying Cowboy”), which can be traced back to the early nineteenth century.

• 1. “Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow” – Carter Family

  Sad song? Yes. Saddest song? Possibly. The song does raise one question: if you’re engaged to a jerk who’s untrue to you the day before your wedding, why on earth would you want to be reunited with that person in heaven? Anybody who’s anybody in traditional country/bluegrass has recorded this song; check out the mighty fine version below.

A couple weeks back, Juli put five songs together about freezing to death. (We here at The 9513 believe that mid-Atlantic cold spell has finally gone to her brain.) Offline, one of our other contributers, Sam Gazdziak affectionately called Juli, “The 9513’s resident mistress of the dark,” and suggested that since there’s so many happy pop-country songs out there, she should break out a new cause of death playlist every week for spite.

We won’t call this spiteful. We’ll just call this week’s Friday Five about death by stampede just a glorified lil’ honor to our own little Elvira.

• 5. “Stampede” – Chris Ledoux

  The poor protagonist in LeDoux’s song is making a peaceful resting spot down by the Red River and bunks down for the night when longhorns stampede through his camp. At the moment he’s about to be trampled to death, he awakes, only to find out that he’s been dreaming. But then the end of the song finishes off with his dream coming true, déjà-vu style. It’s like the movie Groundhog Day, but for cowboys out on the range.

• 4. “Buffalo Stampede” – Cowboy Troy

  I’ll take some grief for including Cowboy Troy in this “country music” playlist, but including this song helps spread the fear of being trampled beyond the bovine species and into the bison family. Cowboy Troy strings along a loose story of a buffalo stampede as an analogy of being a tough guy able to overcome anything–I think that’s what he’s talking about, anyway. I’m not quite jiggy enough to tell.

• 3. “Stampede” – Roy Rogers and the Sons Of The P

  “Ten thousand cattle in flight/The devil’s ridin’ herd tonight/The thunder of the hooves and the fury from the skies/Don’t get out in front or every man dies,” sings the King of the Cowboys, on a song released way back in 1950. Where’s Curly from City Slickers when you need him?

• 2. “Stampede” – Johnny Cash

  Originally released on Cash’s 1965 Western-themed album Johnny Cash Sings the Ballads of the True West, this song tells the story of a cowboy named Frank who is lost to a stampede when his foot misses a stirrup and he loses the grip of his horn. His final yell is, “Hey Johnny, head the wild bunch and do the ladies well.” Perhaps that’s the reason Cash shaved off the Bucky Covington mustache he was sporting on the album’s cover–chicks don’t always dig the stache’.

• 1. “Utah Carol” – Marty Robbins

  In this great story song from 1959, a cowboy named Utah takes the boss’s daughter out on a ride and the red blanket he puts under her saddle falls and causes a stampede. He leaps off his faithful steed, grabs the blanket and leads the stampede away from the young girl–towards himself instead. Utah’s a hero as he meets his end, but what do his friends do to remember him by? They bury him in the dang blanket that killed him!

• 5. “Hurry Home” – Jason Michael Carroll

  Carroll’s version of the Zane Williams song broke into the Top 20 last summer. It’s sweet that the runaway daughter heard her dad’s song of unconditional love on his machine after her Big Bad City Friends do her wrong, but you’ve got to feel kind of bad for all the other folks who had to sit through it every time they called. Awkward.

• 4. “If You Had Called Yesterday” – Julie Roberts

  This one’s from Roberts’ gem of a debut album. If only you’d picked up the phone and left a message 24 hours earlier, Julie Roberts would’ve taken you back, but the sun has risen on a brighter day. Sorry, pal.

• 3. “Austin” – Blake Shelton

  Before he was a master Tweeter, Shelton was singing about answering machines. His 2001 debut single spent five weeks on the top of the charts, because calling a woman by her hometown instead of her actual name is super romantic. You’ve got to wonder what this guy’s bowling buddies thought of his taped greetings. Sure, he got the girl, but he probably also got ribbed for the rest of his life.

• 2. “Leave A Message, Juanita” – The Derailers

  These Bakersfield-loving boys sure can write a catchy song. This one’s from 2003’s Genuine. Heartsick and tired of the hang ups left on the machine, former frontman Tony Villanueva gets specific: “Leave a message, Juanita/And I’ll crawl back to you.” Let’s hope he only knows one Juanita; things could get messy otherwise.

• 1. “Is That A Tear” – Tracy Lawrence

  Ah, the mid ’90s, when Tracy Lawrence could be found all over country radio. Is his ex happy with her choice to dump his ass? Or is that a tear Tracy Lawrence hears in her voice on his answering machine? I’m guessing the latter; no woman can resist Lawrence’s lustrous mullet.

Honorable Mentions:

Cadillac Sky – “Motel Morning”
David Houston – “No Tell Motel”
Eagles – “Hotel California”
Gene Watson – “Love in the Hot Afternoon”
Guy Clark – “Lone Star Hotel”
Jack Ingram & Jerry Jeff Walker – “Picture on My Wall”
Joe Ely – “Standin’ at the Big Hotel”
Little David Wilkins – “Motel Rooms”
Tom Russell – “Evangeline Hotel”
Wade Bowen – “Lost Hotel”

• 20. “Hotel Whiskey” – Hank Williams Jr. & Clint Black

  A bottle, a room, and an old guitar are all Hank Junior and Clint Black need on this single from 1991. Can’t get enough hotel songs from Bocephus? Listen to “The Cheatin’ Hotel” from 2002’s The Almeria Club Recordings.

• 19. “Cheapest Motel” – Tracy Byrd

  A stay at the cheapest motel in town costs a man everything. Well, that’s what he gets for being stupid enough to frequent that hotel in the first place. Even a novice adulterer knows you’ve got to cheat at least one town down the road.

• 18. “Motel In Memphis” – Old Crow Medicine Show

  The boyish string band does some of their best work when dealing with more serious subject matter, i.e. “Big Time in the Jungle.” On this haunting track from Tennessee Pusher they sing about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination at the Lorraine Motel and the aftermath, asking “Did you tremble when you thought about the future/And cry out for a martyred man?”

• 17. “This Hotel Room” – Steve Goodman

  Goodman’s hotel room has a lot of stuff: room service, Magic Fingers, TV Guide. But a man can get tired of all those luxuries when he’s been away from home for too long.

• 16. “The End of the Rainbow Inn” – Chris Wall

  Losing one’s home bar is like losing a beloved family member, or a limb or something. Chris Wall, or, as his website calls him, the Cowboy Savior/Hero/Poet sings about his closing honky tonk with the same emotion others might reserve for true love or mama.

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• 5. “My Cold, Cold Heart Is Melted Now” – Kitty Wells

  Though it borrows its title from another Hank Williams classic, this one’s set to the tune of “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” If you’ve ever been done wrong, there’s some comfort in hearing Wells sing from the wrong-doer’s perspective “I go to bed but only weep/My cold, cold heart won’t let me sleep…My tears pour down like falling rain/Through restless sleep I call your name.”

• 4. “Hey Joe” – Kitty Wells

  This one’s a companion to Carl Smith’s “Hey Joe,” with Wells’ filling in the lady’s thoughts as she sings “Hey Joe, go put on your dancin’ shoes/And I’ll help you forget your blues/I’ve simply got to have you for my own.” Sounds like Joe’s girl-stealing pal from the Smith song is outta luck.

• 3. “I’ll Always Be Your Fraulein” – Kitty Wells

  This top 10 hit in ‘57 was a response to Bobby Helms’ chart topper “Fraulein.” Here Wells is singing from the perspective of that “old German’s daughter” who’s an ocean away from her true love. Maybe it’s for the best that the two are separated: “I’ll Always Be Your Hausfrau” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

• 2. “I’m Paying For That Back Street Affair” – Kitty Wells

  This response to Webb Pierce’s #1 hit went to #6 in 1953. Here Wells laments ever getting involved with a married man, singing “The love I gave so free/Is left to torture me” Sounds like paying for that back street affair involves a scorching case of the clap.

• 1. “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” – Kitty Wells

  It was this response to Hank Thompson’s “The Wild Side of Life” that catapulted Wells to the top of the charts in 1952, making her the first female solo artist with a #1 country song. “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” is, in my opinion, one of the most important songs in country music history. It’s also damn good.

• 5. “Crawl Through Snow” – O’Death

  These Gothic Country Brooklynites are a little bit folk, a little bit punk. On this rockin’ song from Broken Hymns, Limbs, and Skin, lead singer Greg Jamie is barely comprehensible as he sings about slowly freezing to death. But who expects a frozen guy to enunciate clearly anyway?

• 4. “Deep Water, Ice And Snow (Album Version)” – Don Edwards

  Being a cowboy in the winter must really suck, especially when you have to move a thousand heads of cattle across a river in the dead of winter. Thanks to his horse, the narrator survives—many of his companions don’t—but he’s seen a version of hell that’s “mighty cold.”

• 3. “Wildfire” – Michael Martin Murphey

  Murphey’s biggest hit is a little—okay, a lot—cheesy, but don’t act like you don’t know all the words to this song about a girl and her pony, lost in a killing frost.

• 2. “Jacob’s Dream” – Alison Krauss

  This mournful tale about a pair of young boys who freeze to death in the mountains will make you long for a less depressing Krauss song, like “Whiskey Lullaby.” The clip below features the songwriters, Julie Lee and John Pennell, discussing the inspiration behind the song. Though the story told in “Jacob’s Dream” sounds like fiction, the tragedy of the Lost Children of the Alleghenies—and the farmer who dreamed of their location—is sadly true.

• 1. “The Blizzard” – Jim Reeves

  This single (from Tall Tales and Short Tempers) went to #4 in 1961, which means a whole lot of folks dug a song about a guy who freezes to death a hundred yards from his sweetheart’s house because he couldn’t leave his lame horse. Scottish indie pop band Camera Obscura recently released a pretty excellent cover if you’re into that sort of thing.

• 9. “Sleepless Nights” – Patty Loveless

  Loveless named her 2008 covers album after this heartbreaking tune. It was originally recorded by the Everly Brothers, but Patty and Vince Gill’s version is just fine.

• 8. “(I Got) A Hole In My Pocket” – “Little” Jimmy Dickens

  The Bryants got their foot in the country music door when Dickens recorded “Country Boy” in 1949. “Country Boy” was a Top 10 hit, but I like this wild rockabilly song from 1958. It failed to chart.

• 7. “Bye Bye Love” – Ray Charles

  This Everly Brothers tune kicked off Charles’ seminal album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. The excellent big band horn arrangement on the song is courtesy of Gerald Wilson, who’s still arranging and conducting at 91 years old. Follow-up album Modern Sounds, Vol. 2 features the song “Midnight,” written by Bryant and Chet Atkins.

• 6. “How’s The World Treating You” – The Louvin Brothers

  Here’s another one Bryant wrote with Chet Atkins. In addition to Charlie and Ira, there are some good versions of this song from Eddy Arnold (his went to #4), Elvis Presley, and, of course, Alison Krauss and James Taylor, who teamed up for an unforgettable duet on Livin’, Lovin’, Losin’: The Songs of the Louvin Brothers.

• 5. “Hey Joe!” – Carl Smith

  Boudleaux wrote this one all by his lonesome, and Smith topped the charts with it for eight weeks in 1953. Kitty Wells recorded a sequel from Joe’s girl’s point of view; her song, also called “Hey Joe,” is worth a listen too.

• 4. “Change of Heart” – Teddy Thompson

  Another Bryant/Atkins classic. Kitty Wells’ 1957 version is good, but Thompson’s, released 50 years later (on underrated gem Upfront and Down Low) is beautiful. Of course, he’s got good music in his genes.

• 3. “Rocky Top” – Osborne Brothers

  Everyone loves Rocky Top, the magical land without smoggy smoke or telephone bills. Everyone, that is, but the revenuers.

• 2. “All I Have to Do Is Dream” – The Everly Brothers

  Babyfaced brothers Phil and Don are cute as a basket full of fuzzy bunnies on this 1958 tune that simultaneously topped the Billboard Pop, Country, and R&B charts. Brother duos have rarely sounded better.

• 1. “Love Hurts” – Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris

  You cannot go wrong with a song like “Love Hurts.” Unless you’re Nazareth, in which case, shame on you. “Love Hurts” was originally recorded by (surprise!) the Everlys, but Gram’s and Emmylou’s version kills me. Love can’t be so bad if it sounds so dang good.

• 5. “Jezebel (LP Version)” – Iron & Wine

  If you’re not listening to the folk stylings of Iron & Wine, aka Sam Beam, aka Jamey Johnson’s brother in beardyness, you’re missing out. Here he takes a progressive view of the Old Testament figure, singing “Who’s seen Jezebel?/She was born to be the woman we could blame/Make me a beast half as brave/I’d be the same.”

• 4. “Sinful Daughter” – Dave Alvin

  Jezebel is just one of three Biblical women Alvin sings about here, women who’ve been “banished and branded, force to wander.” As always when it comes to Dave Alvin, there’s some badass guitar on this song. Co-writer Shannon McAnally does a lovely solo version below.

• 3. “Hey Jezebel” – Allison Moorer

  Moorer lays the verbal smackdown—and threatens a physical one—on a high-heeled hussy after her man on this alt-country toetapper. Well, I suppose if you mess with Steve Earle, you get what’s coming to you.

• 2. “Jezebel” – Gene Vincent

  The rockabilly luminary covered this Frankie Laine hit about a faithless lover for 1956 LP Blue Jean Bop. Vincent sure makes it sound like a pre-murder ballad, singing “if ever a pair of eyes promised paradise/Deceiving me, grieving me, leaving me blue/Jezebel it was you” with barely restrained menace.

• 1. “Jezebel” – Chely Wright

  “Jezebel,” the second single from 2001’s Never Love You Enough, topped out at #23 on the charts. The music video—which involves a voodoo doll and Wright in a series of bizarre, fringy, midriff-baring outfits, one of which includes a Carmen Sandiego-esque hat—definitely deserves watching, though it does raise one question: why does she forgive her straying man at the video’s end? After all, it takes two to do the Tempur-Pedic Tango.

Honorable Mentions: Burl Ives – “I Found My Best Friend in the Dog Pound”; Crossin’ Dixon – “I Love My Old Bird Dog (And I Love You Too)”; Dave Dudley – “George (And the North Woods)”; Hoosier Hot Shots – “Where Has My Little Dog Gone?”; Hoyt Axton – “Della and the Dealer”; Merle Haggard – “Seeing Eye Dog”; Neil Young – “Old King.”

• 20. “Dogsong (aka Sleep Dog Lullaby)” – The Be Good Tanyas

  A sweet, slow fiddle tune for your favorite sleepy pup. If you just can’t get enough folky canine lullabies, the Tanyas recorded “Dogsong 2″ for 2003’s Chinatown., but it’s kind of a bummer. Spoiler alert: the dog dies. It is sad.

• 19. “How Much Is That Doggie In The Window” – Freddy Fender

  Fender recorded the popular novelty song—with both English and Spanish verses, of course—for 1975’s Are You Ready For Freddy? The dog is to protect his sweetheart from “robbers with flashlights that shine in the dark.” Either that’s a euphemism or those are the most unthreatening robbers ever.

• 18. “More I’m Around Some People” – Sonny Burgess

  There’s nothing like the company of some people to make a man realize how much he likes his dog, says Burgess. That’s nice and all, but the real treat in this song is Burgess’s nonchalant delivery of the lyric “just last week I got carjacked,” an annoyance that’s apparently on the same level as a jerky boss and a non-country-music-loving brother.

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• 5. “Fireflies” – Rhett Miller and Rachel Yamagata

  The Old 97’s frontman teams up with indie darling Yamagata on this vaguely Oedipal song about a failed relationship from The Believer. Miller sings “You look like my mother did when she was 19/Not afraid to die,” to which Rachel Yamagata responds “For the last time, I’m not your mother/And I was only 19, still a firefly.” Too bad fireflies only last for a night when you catch them. Less, if you forget to poke holes in the jar lid.

• 4. “Firefly” – Southern Culture on the Skids

  SCOTS’ Rick Miller sings about the need for fireflies to shine some light on a moonless night…and on the two gals he’s with. This is a song best heard in person, but keep an eye on the stage, lest you get pelted with some fried chicken.

• 3. “Chasing Lightning Bugs” – Gold Heart

  Virginia’s Gold sisters are a delightful up and coming teenage bluegrass act. This tune, from last year’s gem My Sisters and Me, has the girls reminiscing about an idyllic childhood spent barefoot in the backyard. Though they might be a little too young to be singing about life “twenty years ago,” this is a nice bluegrass song with sweet sisterly harmonies.

• 2. “Fireflies” – Mark Stuart and the Bastard Sons

  “Fireflies and corn liquor“: two fun uses for mason jars. As a bonus, Stuart throws a hard-luck, redneck woman into the mix on this rockin’ alt-country tune from 2009’s Bend in the Road.

• 1. “Fireflies” – Lori McKenna

  This folky ode to optimism is from McKenna’s 2001 album Pieces of Me. Four years later, Faith Hill recorded a version for her chart topping album Fireflies. Guess there’s something to that whole notion of believing in “fairytales and dreamers’ dreams like bedsheet sails,” especially if it earns you a giant wad of cash.