Drive-By Truckers, <i>Decoration Day</i>.
Jesus. How many albums do you know that <i>lead off</i> with a song about incest?
And this isn't the "Daddy raped his little girl" kinda indignant incest song, no, this is a "fucked-up girl meets her 19-year-old brother for the first time and falls in love with him and has several kids by him and then they go to jail" kinda incest song.
And then there's "Marry Me":
My Daddy didn't pull out but he never apologized
Rock and Roll means well,
But it can't help telling young boys lies.
Or "Outfit":
Well, I used to go out in a Mustang,
A 302 Mach One in green,
Me and your momma made you in the back
And I sold it to buy her a ring
...
So don't let 'em change who you are, boy
And don't try to be who you ain't,
And don't let me catch you in Kendale
With a bucket of wealthy man's paint.
Don't call what you're wearing an outfit.
Don't ever say your car is broke.
Don't sing with a fake British accent.
Don't act like your family's a joke.
Have fun but stay clear of the needle.
Call home on your sister's birthday.
Unlike "Southern Rock Opera," this isn't an album about growing up Southern and proud and ashamed. This is an album about cresting that hill in your 20s and seeing that long, long road winding down ahead of you from the layoffs at the Ford factory into the dirty trailer park, where scarred mongrel dogs lie on their backs underneath 1970 Novas up on blocks, and obese women in purple Wal-mart polyester stretch pants chain-smoke Marlboro lights and cheat with each other's husbands, and snot-nosed children in dirty T-shirts and bare feet throw rocks at feral cats in the junkyard.
"It was a difficult delivery
Now it's growing up mean and strong."
Two thumbs up. Way, way up.
Bruce
Drive-By Truckers, Decoration Day
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bruce
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How can you argue with,
"Daddy said one of the boys would come by,
The lumber man's favorite son.
He said, 'Beat him real good but don't dare let him die,
And if you see Holland Hill, run.'
I said, 'They ain't give us trouble before
We ain't brought down on ourselves,'
But a chain on my back and my ear to the floor
And I'll send all the Hill boys to hell."
Bruce
"Daddy said one of the boys would come by,
The lumber man's favorite son.
He said, 'Beat him real good but don't dare let him die,
And if you see Holland Hill, run.'
I said, 'They ain't give us trouble before
We ain't brought down on ourselves,'
But a chain on my back and my ear to the floor
And I'll send all the Hill boys to hell."
Bruce