CD Odyssey Disc 398: Steve Earle

On Saturday, I went to the bank to do some business still requiring a teller (this still happens on rare occasions).  While I was there I asked how much we still had owing on our mortgage.  When the teller told me I realized this was less than the amount I had in my bank account.

So today I went to the bank and paid it off – all of it.  We are mortgage free!  Giddy with excitement I went straight to the liquor store and bought a $140 bottle of scotch to celebrate.  Hell, I can afford it now.

Disc 398 is…Copperhead Road

Artist: Steve Earle

Year of Release: 1988

What’s Up With The Cover?:  At last!  A Steve Earle album not featuring Tony Fitzpatrick’s art!  Instead we are treated to iconic sleeve patch that has become synonymous with the modern expression of outlaw country music.  Skull and crossbones – with bloodshot eyes and fangs, so you’ll know they’re super serious.

How I Came To Know It: Since I just reviewed Steve Earle about three or four albums ago, you’ll remember that I’ve known Steve Earle since his first album in 1986.  “Copperhead Road” propelled him to superstardom, however, and like most people in my home town, I got a heavy dose of this record everywhere I went.

How It Stacks Up:  This may be the record most people know Steve Earle for, but that doesn’t make it his best.  That said, it is very much top half.  I have fourteen Steve Earle albums of original, non-live material.  I’d put “Copperhead Road” around 6^th or 7^th best depending on my mood.

Rating: 4 stars

There are a few albums so iconic that from the opening notes, you know exactly what you’re listening to.  The ‘chuk-chuk’ of guitar on “Back in Black,” the first discordant note on Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut and the opening bagpipes of “Copperhead Road.”

If I were Steve Earle, “Copperhead Road” – both the song and the album – would probably annoy me for casting an unfair shadow over the rest of an impressive body of work.  At a recent concert I was at, a drunken idiot in the audience kept yelling “Copperhead Road!” at regular intervals – even after Earle had already played it.  I doubted the guy knew any other songs on the album, let alone that Earle has as impressive a discography of any artist I’ve ever heard.

And while I’d love to play the hipster douchebag iconoclast and spend this whole review talking about the two better albums that come before it, (yet to be reviewed) this one’s for “Copperhead Road” and all those who love it.  Even that idiot from the concert, who would’ve had a far better time if he’d just settled back and listened to the music.

“Copperhead Road” may be unfairly top-of-mind, it is still one hell of a good record, and the title track is a five star anthem of rock and folk and country all rolled into one that fires me up just as much now as the first time I heard it.  I swear that hearing Earle sing “I still remember that rumblin’ sound” about John Lee Pettimore’s Dad’s whisky-running big block Dodge has more to do with me wanting to own a Charger than anything else I can think of.  However, this album has a lot more going for it than a single song, no matter how great that song is.

The album is replete with tales of tragedy of ordinary men stretching from the American Civil War through to Vietnam.  Some of my favourites include “The Devil’s Right Hand” about a boy who grows up obsessed with owning a pistol, a notion that horrifies his mother:

“About the time that Daddy left to fight the big war

I saw my first pistol in the general store

In the general store, when I was thirteen

Thought it was the finest thing I ever had seen.

So I asked if I could have one someday when I grew up

Mama dropped a dozen eggs, she really blew up

She really blew up and I didn’t understand

Mama said the pistol is the devil’s right hand.”

Of course, in a country song if your Mom warns you away from guns and you get one anyway, there will be tragic consequences (e.g. Johnny Cash’s “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town”) and “Devil’s Right Hand” is no different.  What is different, is that Cash’s reckless youth is killed in the bar fight, whereas Earle’s is arrested and put on trial where, before he is executed he professes his innocence, proclaiming, “nothing touched the trigger but the devil’s right hand.”

This is no surprise, as Earle wants to take his messy anti-heroes to greater extremes, and he wants to incorporate society’s institutions into the decisions that they make, so we can all feel a little bit responsible.

This is very evident in another favourite of mine, “Johnny Come Lately”, which tells the tale of two generations of soldiers coming home from war.  The first about the narrator’s grandfather, who came home from Europe:

“But when Johnny Come Lately comes marching home

With a chest full of medals and a G.I. loan

They’ll be waitin’ at the station down at San Antone

When Johnny comes marching home.”

Of course when the story turns to our narrator, he sees a different reality:

“Now I’m standing on a runway in San Diego

A couple Purple Hearts so I move a little slow

There’s nobody here, maybe nobody knows

About a place called Vietnam.”

Ah, Steve, always ready to twist the knife, and remind us that the wars might change, and we might think differently about each of them, but the soldier experiences just the same horror regardless.  When it comes to giving a shout out to the forgotten veterans of Vietnam, I’ll always tip my hat to the master, Kris Kristofferson.

My last favourite is fitting, given the fact that I paid off my mortgage earlier today.  “Back to the Wall” is a song about being a man who visits an old friend who lives homeless under the bridge who’s lost it all.  It is a song that reminds us that the wolves are never that far away, and for all our self-satisfied financial success, we’re all just a couple of bad turns away from having nothing at all.

The words to these songs are vintage folk, but the music is the simple, energetic guitar strumming of traditional country, with a slight rock edge.  It was a combination that Earle would use to translate his career across genres, but one that he is quick to point out he did not invent (on the bonus live disc I’ll comment on later, he credits Emmylou Harris, among others).

Not every song is great, but even the lesser tracks (“Snake Oil” and the devotional “Nothing But a Child”) are still better than what most artists put on their album.

The Bonus Album

For years I had the regular version of “Copperhead Road” but a couple years ago I bought a deluxe twentieth anniversary edition, with a bonus disc of live tracks, which I’ll give a quick word to before I go off to randomly select my next album.

Firstly, full marks to Earle for leaving the original album alone and intact, and putting the bonus material on a separate disc so I can choose if I want to hear it or not.  Pogues?  Jethro Tull? Are you listening?  Apparently not.

The majority of the music is a show Earle put on in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1987 while promoting the upcoming “Copperhead Road.”  A single track is from a 1988 show and then there are five more live from Calgary in 1989.

I like that the music comes from the same period as the album, and the live tracks show that Earle has always had a knack for live performances (he’s still great, by the way).

Just like when I’ve seen him, the concert is mostly just the music, well played, but with a few short intros and outros to some of the tracks.  With only three albums under his belt, Earle doesn’t have as much material, but that is fun as well.  First because you get to hear some songs he doesn’t play that often anymore, and second because you get to see what has survived the years of changing set lists.

My favourite thing on a live album is hearing something that an artist likes to perform, but isn’t on a studio album.  In this case, we are treated to Earle playing Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris classic “Wheels,” Springsteen’s “Nebraska” and the Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers,” among others.  In each case, I’d take the original artist, but Earle does a fine enough job to make it close.

I wouldn’t say everyone needs the special edition “Copperhead Road” but in terms of the stand-alone album, don’t let the excessive play of the title track turn you away – this is a fine record, and well worth your time.

And if you find yourself mortgage-free and are looking for a fine scotch, here's one you'll like.

  

Best tracks: Copperhead Road, Back to the Wall, Devil’s Right Hand, Johnny Come Lately, You Belong To Me.