My good friend turned me onto this album, he tended to sway more towards the long sleeve T-Shirt under short sleeve T-Shirt-Paste Magazine-Wilco-Whole Foods-Mac-Saab side of the spectrum...not that there is anything wrong with that; and like many things there was a whole 'nother side under that skin that would shine through at certain times. There was always something inherently American inside of him, when I read blogs such as The Selvege Yard, A Continuous Lean, Cold Splinters, Impossible Cool, etc. I see this person. And like those blogs and their creators as well as my friend they have spurned this grass roots campaign of solid American traditions, be it in clothes, people and most importantly music.
When my friend gave me the album I put it aside, an act as habitual as an addict roping up his arm "Yea if it is that good why don't I have it.." Then later, maybe I'll give it a try and play a random song, decree it is terrible and give it back to said person without an import into iTunes. In this case I was intrigued by the title, we were living in Jacksonville (although not the one Ryan Adams had in mind) and the mood of the album permeated through me throughout my time in residence there, so it ended up on my iPod. Like my twenty year old cowboy boots this song has remained a great friend throughout the years, my consciousness bending the meaning of the lyrics and structure of the melody as toes breaking in tough leather, beating it down as a mink oil into a fabric of silky warm harmonics. The best songs come to you (whether you wrote them or acquire them) both when you are on you last leg and when you are riding high. They speak to you it the bowels of depression and celebrate till champagne-black-out just like that college friend who always wanted just one more drink.
When I hear that melancholy voice utter 1....2...1,2,3,4 and the faint sound a of boot tapping in the background a proverbial Stetson slides forward in my mind and and emotional Lucky dangling from my lower lip get lit by and old tarnished Zippo. The pedal steel slides in played by an old man with slicked back white hair and pearl snap denim. There's a Budweiser lamp hanging above a smoky pool table, cigarette burns on the faded green fabric, gaped hard wood planks for flooring and Silver Dollars varnished into the bar covered by spilled beer and dried whiskey creeping towards a few singles left for a tip.
"The engine turns on a dime but I ain't going nowhere tonight, I ain't been going nowhere for quite any while..." a heartfelt raspy falsetto sans reverb mutters into a stainless microphone. And that man alone at the bar, his hat slides down and reaches for the pack. He lights it take a deep drag with his forearms on the bar, exhales, then looks down at the hardwood planks and the nick on his boots remembering Amarillo. The rhythm man hits an F on a large Taylor Widebody with hand painted roses under the pic guard and chrome vine inlays on the fretboard. Our man solo at the bar thinks of her in Rock Springs two nights ago in that neon motel when he hears "I'll miss those nights at the bar with every girl all loaded like freights, and the pain in the morning comes as easy as it goes." How she smiled in the morning when she looked up from his chest wrapped in faded chestnut sheets, then arose to pull on a tight pair of jeans, button up her blouse with a name tag on the left breast and shove an order book in her back pocket listening to her boots click in staccato on the way out the door then rolling over and out of bed to take a shower to make Jackson in two days.
There's a couple in the dark back left corner who met two hours ago at the counter of a small home cooked restaurant along a small running creek four miles down the road before you cross over the Snake River and into the tiny hamlet. They've only unlocked eyes to survey a hand on a leg, a breast and that curve above her hip bone exposing itself just enough to catch view of powder milky pale soft skin and the promise it brings. She grabs his waist around the cracked leather belt and hooks her right thumb on the inside of his jeans running it side to side and pulling gently outward. "Breath all heavy and slow..." While the white-haired gentleman vibratos the steel on his ZumSteelD10, the Taylor Widebody hits an E chord and the open low echoes off the walls.
And it happens every night. Whether it takes place at Bar Pleiades with characters in Bruno Cucinelli Jackets and Chanel suits, or in the back of Long Boards with Birdwells trunks, Rainbow thongs and USD T-Shirts the story is always the same and usually so is the ending. But as for me, I (and my dear friend who introduced me to this track) remember this one place, a place that has now been corrupted but in my mind was always filled with such characters, such wants, needs and such sadly beautiful stories that are somehow so less romantic outside of the wild American Western cannon.
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