This doesn’t need much of an introduction. Steve Earle is awesome. Put down whatever indie rock crap you have in the player right now, head down to your local record store, and pick up Earle’s new Washington Square Serenade as well as everything else in his catalogue.
Here are some essential Steve Earle tracks that got me listening to a guy I used to pass off as just another country singer. In no particular order:
1. Cocaine Cannot Kill My Pain
This isn’t only the best song on Earle’s best album (1996’s I Feel Alright)…it’s a mindfuck of a drug nightmare. Earle, a former heroin and cocaine addict — fresh out of prison when he recorded this — moans over what sounds more like dark, ambient noise than an actual song. The lyrics (”Heroin’s the only thing/The only gift that darkness brings”) are haunting and leave you with the impression that their author is about to relapse at any second.
When coupled with “South Nashville Blues,” a twangy ode to scoring smack (more on that later), “CCKMP” transforms the joyful vibe of I Feel Alright’s I-survived-jail-and-rehab first half. It doesn’t leave you wondering whether Earle will ever be able to top such a great song — you’re wondering whether he’s going to live long enough to be able to attempt it. Creepy, but awesome.
2. Warrior
Earle’s 2004 album The Revolution Starts Now was the follow-up to Jerusalem, which, thanks to the controversy surrounding “John Walker’s Blues,” made him a household name. Like its predecessor, Revolution is full of anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-establishment rants. There’s a tongue-in-cheek calypso love song for Condoleeza Rice (”Condi, Condi”), a Ramones-y rip at censorship (”F the CC”) and a typical Earle storytelling ballad in defense of the everyman (”Rich Man’s War”).
The true highlight, however, is the fourth track — an unassuming poem set to a hard-rocking beat entitled “Warrior.” Unlike the other songs on the record, there’s no hook — nothing to sing along to, nothing to stick in your head. It doesn’t rhyme. Earle doesn’t even sing. Instead, he delivers a weird, stream-of-consciousness sounding spoken-word poem, full of cumbersome multi-syllable words. It’s not immediately clear what it means, but it seems to be in fitting with the rest of the record’s anti-authoritarian standpoint.
Whatever it means, lyrics like “This is the best time of the day — the dawn/The final cleansing breath unsullied yet/By acrid fume or death’s cacophony” just sound cool. If you still think Earle’s just a country singer…this is about as far from country as you can get.
3. Breed
Rarities collections are usually a tough sell. You usually end up with a bunch of mediocre b-sides, live tracks, soundtrack contributions and assorted stuff that wasn’t good enough to make the cut for a real album. Earle’s Sidetracks collection is the rare exception.
Although some of the unreleased material is great and the soundtrack music is exceptional (”Ellis Unit One,” for example), the strength of Sidetracks is its cover tunes — the Slickers’ “Johnny Too Bad,” the Supersuckers’ “Creepy Jackalope Eye,” Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages”…and this wicked Nirvana cover.
While you’d almost expect a “country” singer like Earle to take an aggressive number like “Breed” and twang it up, Earle plays it straight — his “Breed” is as fast and raging as the original. Recorded with a stripped-down version of his regular band, the Dukes, “Breed” is easily the best track on the record and probably the most punk rock thing a (then) 47-year-old redneck from Tennessee has ever done.
The cover was apparently a last-minute omission from the Transcendental Blues sessions, which is a bit of a shame. The overrated Transcendental could have benefited from the track’s energy.
5. South Nashville Blues
As mentioned earlier, this track from I Feel Alright connects with “CCKMP” in a number of ways.
“CCKMP” is about the craving for heroin seen through the eyes of a depraved junkie, while “South Nasvhille Blues” is a little more lucid. In the song –which is about heading down to the wrong side of the tracks to score heroin — Earle seems to be aware of the danger he’s putting himself in.
“I took my pistol and a hundred dollar bill/I got everything I need to get me killed” he sings, before taking a trip to visit the devil (representing his dealer). It’s essentially a solo performance — just Earle and his guitar (although there are some overdubs, like a steel guitar). I’ve seen him play this live, and it’s one of the highlights of my concertgoing history.
Unlike “CCKMP,” which is droning and noisy, “Nashville” is actually a pleasant tune, but the lyrics tell a far more depressing story. “I won’t be satisfied,” he sings “until they lock me up again.”
6. I Thought You Should Know
Earle’s songs cover some pretty broad territory — descent into drug hell, raging left-wing politics, first-person historical storytelling — but his strong suit has always been love songs. The singer has been married seven(!) times, so it’s not surprising that he’s a sucker for love.
While he has far more poignant love songs, “I Thought You Should Know,” an underplayed album track from The Revolution Starts Now, is one of my favourites. It’s actually not a love song by traditional standards. It’s more of a warning to a potential lover: if you’re just planning on messing with my emotions, let’s not even bother.
“If you’re thinking about breaking my heart,” he sings in the chorus, “you might as well just pick up your little black dress and go/Somebody else already tore it apart/And I thought you should know.”
Doesn’t sound much like a love song, right? It’s not the chorus as much as the way the verses are worded that is incredibly touching. I’ve always maintained that Earle is a brilliant lyricst, and this is one of my favourite examples.
“Maybe this is all that you want/Maybe you’re just as lonesome as me/A shoulder that you can cry on/A warm safe place you can be/Someone to call in the middle of the night/When the ghosts in your bedroom won’t rest…”
Of course, lyrics aren’t the only key to this song. It has a slow-burning soul-ballad groove to it, although the distorted guitars add a bit of a darker feel. Then there’s the harmonica solo. As a harmonica player myself, I’ve always been fascinated with the way Earle plays. He tends to blow in a really aggressive kind of way — way harder than the songs ever warrant. It’s rare to hear an Earle harp solo where you don’t hear him taking deep breaths in between notes, but it’s not a bad thing. His solos are typically righteous, and “I Thought You Should Know” is one of his best.
…and there’s a massive list of other songs that are worth checking out. I haven’t mentioned Valentine’s Day, the new album’s standout Jericho Road, the all-time classic My Old Friend The Blues or even my nominee for “best album title ever,” Earle’s heroin-roughened concert album, Shut Up And Die Like An Aviator.
There’s an incredible wealth of material out there, and if early stuff like Guitar Town, Exit 0 and The Hard Way strike you as being too pop-country for your tastes, at least you can appreciate the masterful production values; Earle is a digital pioneer, yet his albums — particularly the later ones — retain that analog warmth.
Steve Earle - South Nashville Blues:
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Steve Earle - Cocaine Cannot Kill My Pain:
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Steve Earle - Warrior:
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Steve Earle - Breed:
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You can check out all of this stuff…and you should…at Steve Earle’s website
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country, rock, Steve Earle
