1. I'm a Lonesome Fugitive*
2. All of Me Belongs to You
3. House of Memories
4. Life in Prison*
5. Whatever Happened to Me
6. Drink Up and Be Somebody*
7. Someone Told My Story
8. If You Want to Be My Woman
9. Mary's Mine
10. Skid Row
11. My Rough and Rowdy Ways
12. Mixed Up Mess of a Heart
B+
I criticise the Book for its chronological inconsistencies, but the editors obviously knew people were going to try and listen through the List in order. So it is that we emerge from a cloud of incense and hash smoke and into the clear air of a pretty solid country album. It's a welcome respite.
Merle Haggard is a great singer and guitarist, and he wrote or co-wrote most of the songs here. Most of them are rough-and-ready bar room numbers about the usual country themes - lost love, caring for your sweetheart, and the mixed blessing that is alcohol. The sound is somewhere between Buck Owens and Patsy Cline, with a steady back beat and lots of bluesy flourishes and nods to jazz and swing. The production is pristine, and the arrangements (lots of pedal steel here) are tasteful while still being tough. But still, it's very much what people think of when they think of old country music. I can imagine Hank Hill loving this album.
Probably one of the most notable elements of this album is the songs focusing on crime and poverty and wasting your life. This is interesting because Merle Haggard was a former criminal who did multiple stretches. Apparently the title track was written without knowledge of this fact, but it appealed to Haggard due to his past and he made it his own. But as bleak as that song is, it's still kind of a romance that pays court to the allure of being on the run (America, much like Australia, loves its outlaws). Much bleaker is the harrowing "Life in Prison", a song Haggard co-wrote. What do you make of a song about a man facing life without parole, whose only wish is that he might die and be freed from his torment? It also raises a good point about capital punishment, or at least something I've always felt, that is that killing some prisoners might be considered a mercy they don't deserve. I mean, obviously if there's a God and a Hell then it's just to send monsters to meet their maker, but if you're like me and don't believe in any of that it's a much more fitting punishment to have them rot in gaol for the term of their natural life. Although that's just my opinion, and actually antithetical to the real point of the song.
Anyway, equally bleak is the song "House of Memories", which is kind of like "There's Always Something There to Remind Me" I suppose. The narrator has nothing left but his house, and everything in it is a constant reminder of the lover he's lost, to the point where it's driving him mad.
Another good song is "Drink Up and Be Somebody". It's a dark song, although delivered in an upbeat style, dealing with a man who's been spurned and drinks to feel important and hide his true feelings. A lot of songs about alcohol either wholly endorse it or tell some bleak tale, but this song actually captures why a lot of people drink, and both the pros and cons of it. This kind of honest appraisal of working class life is one of the things I've grown to like about the country music I've listened to.
But it's not all bleakness and despair. There are a few upbeat love songs, and some cheeky almost-rockers. Really, the whole album is pretty good, and the lyrics are complex and clever enough to support sitting and listening to it through (ideally on a Sunday afternoon, with a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other). One of the things I've liked about this project is being forced to listen to more Country music. It often gets written off as a load of depressing, ultra-nationalist clap trap, and to be fair I wouldn't want to have to listen to the overproduced crap that passes for a lot of country these days. But there's also a lot of great stuff, and artists like Gillian Welsh and Neko Case wouldn't exist without it. I'm looking forward to listening to more of it over the course of this project.
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