we don't know our ass from a hole in the ground
Friday, February 27, 2015
Songs South: Rednecks
Posted by KKafa at 2:52 PM View Comments
Labels: Randy Newman
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Songs South: Tennessee Snow
[purchase]
If you look to the left, you can see that the concept behind this theme was to write about songs that “reference warmer climes.” When we chose this theme, it was because it was freezing in the Northern United States, and we were longing for more tropical weather.
Turns out, pretty much since the day the theme started, it has been freezing cold in the American South, with snow and ice storms in places where such weather is incredibly rare, including Texas, Louisiana and Georgia. I, however, am most interested and concerned about the weather in Tennessee—Nashville, in particular, where my son and his girlfriend moved last fall. They have already seen, first hand, cold and snow that I bet they never expected, and have had to chip a layer of ice off their car. Having grown up in the Northeast, they have now experienced what it is like to live in a place that doesn’t have a fleet of snow plows standing by, or a stockpile of salt and sand, and where the drivers aren’t used to the weather conditions.
In their honor, then, is this tune from bluegrass band Lost Highway, called, appropriately, “Tennessee Snow.”
Stay safe and warm, Adam and Robin.
Posted by Jordan Becker at 8:36 AM View Comments
Labels: Lost Highway, Songs South
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
SONGS SOUTH: SOUTHERN ACCENT
Bet you're expecting me to extol the merits of a good old Cornish burr, Devonian dipthongs or even just my home county of Sussex and it's own idiosyncratic twang, but, no, they haven't written songs about that (unless you mean this, God help us!) I refer, and you knew really, didn't you, to the 1985 song by Tom Petty. Strangely, as a band of Floridians transplanted to the West Coast, I never really think of them as "Southerners," irrespective of latitude, as "the South", in music at least, seems to reserve itself for the Deep South, the territories of Stax and Capricorn record companies, so Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, plus or minus parts of Texas. (If that's wrong, forgive me, but, just as you guys have quaint visions of Swinging London, so too do I about the seamy side of N'Awlins, with accents as stiff and impenetrable as a burnt hoggroast.)
The young'uns call it country, the Yankees call it dumb
I got my own way of talkin' but everything is done
With a southern accent where I come from
Think I might go work Orlando if them orange groves don't freeze
I got my own way of workin' but everything is run
With a southern accent where I come from
For just a minute it was all so real
For just a minute she was standing there with me
And kneels down over by the window and says a prayer for me
I got my own way of prayin' but everyone's begun
With a southern accent where I come from
With a southern accent where I come from
Now I just love the sentiment in those lyrics, the sheer pride in belonging, into having an identity forged and formed in geography, believing the song could hold equivalent credence to other maverick nations, clinging on to their territories. "With a Scottish accent, where I come from" somehow comes instantly to mind. And the tune, too, carries a sedate majesty, tinged with just enough melancholia for the days gone by.
For such a simple song it is certainly my favourite within the Tom Petty canon, and it covers remarkably well.
So, here's Tom:
But don't you think the song was actually made for this guy?
Though, I have to say I am also very keen on this version, by Dawn Landes:
Buy Tom
Buy Johnny
Buy Dawn
Posted by Seuras Og at 10:20 AM View Comments
Labels: Dawn Landes, Johnny Cash, Songs South, The Wurzels, Tom Petty
Songs South: Honky Tonk Blues
Hank Williams, "Honky Tonk Blues"
Honky Tonky Blues, purchase
Posted by Andy La Raygun at 2:48 AM View Comments
Labels: Country music, Hank Williams, Honky Tonk Blues, Nirvana, The Jayhawks, Uncle Tupelo, wilco