Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, and Other Good Stuff

[Post Oak 20254]

22 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Streetlights is in his top 5.  I didn’t love it when it came out, but it grew on me over time 

 

It's top 5 for me.  

Goddamn Lonely Love

Outfit

Stockholm

Alabama Pines

Streetlights

 

Top 5 is hard.

 

[Al_4_ISU 12471]

43 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

It's top 5 for me.  

Goddamn Lonely Love

Outfit

Stockholm

Alabama Pines

Streetlights

 

Top 5 is hard.

 

I’ll play:

Outfit

Elephant

Streetlights

Goddamn Lonely Love

The Day John Henry Died

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

My top 5:

Speed Trap Town

Elephant

Streetlights 

Something to Love

Goddamn Lonely Love

[Al_4_ISU 12471]

I will add that I almost never listen to Elephant, but that’s kinda why it makes the cut

[GenXer 2894]

2 hours ago, Seasick Sailor said:

Another one from Weathervanes:

 

Goddamn that’s good. Seeing him in a couple weeks in Dallas.

[Celery Man 20979]

Goddamn Lonely Love

Outfit

 

 

 

Speed Trap Town

Vampires

Danko Manuel

 

I dunno, that doesn't seem right. You could swap out Vampires with Cover Me Up or Elephant. So many songs like Razor Town, John Henry, Never Gonna Change... honestly there are songs like Cigarettes and Wine that I don't think are that great but I love singing and so have a lot of listens. Really I think I have a top two and then a huge rotating list of tier 1 songs.

[Post Oak 20254]

I think this just shows how great Goddamn Lonely Love is.

[Celery Man 20979]

Weird how you guys all love the song Isbell wrote about me three quarters day drunk texting my ex from a bar in Pensacola.

[tbone_ 14133]

Songs she sang in the shower is def in my top 5. Not sure why but man I dig that tune.

[BigOrange1 6442]

Different Days and Relatively Easy rank very high upon my list.

[Al_4_ISU 12471]

Relatively Easy is another one that I didn’t care for at first, but really grew on me over time. The lyrics especially hit me.

[bluto 4934]

4 hours ago, tbone_ said:

Songs she sang in the shower is def in my top 5. Not sure why but man I dig that tune.

Like so many of his lines ‘experience robs me of hope’ is rock solid 

[tbone_ 14133]

Like so many of his lines ‘experience robs me of hope’ is rock solid 

Yes. That album is full of those. It really is a masterpiece.

[Shoxthemonkey 1982]

I'm coming up on our 50th Anniversary and If We Were Vampires hits me like a hammer.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Shoxthemonkey
our, not my

[SimonBolivar 10958]

I'm about to stop listening to Isbell. He's a great musician, but I'm tired of hearing one his songs and then going and hugging my wife for 10 minutes as I think about one of us dying for the next two hours. 

[BigOrange1 6442]

1 hour ago, Shoxthemonkey said:

I'm coming up on our 50th Anniversary and If We Were Vampires hits me like a hammer.

my wife's aunt passed away unexpectedly in early march.  the night she passed my wife rushed to the hospital and i spent the evening listening to that song over and over and snuggling with our 2 year old daughter.  it hit hard.

[Al_4_ISU 12471]

Vampires made me seriously reconsider the entire concept of marriage 

[Celery Man 20979]

They do a thing at weddings where they usher everyone out and you do a dance with your wife in the empty room and then you go to the car. We couldn’t land on a song and then my wife heard Vampires in my car and said “why not this” and yeah… wtf why didn’t I think of this.

Fun song to learn. Standard tuning down a full step I think, something like Em C D and then B or able gets in there, and obviously you’re doing that fingerpicking note walking thing.

[tbone_ 14133]

I really wish he’d quit showing off with his tunings. I can never figure that shit out.

[jimmyjazz 45998]

It's a lot easier when you can afford a few dozen high end guitars.

[tbone_ 14133]

Meaning you just keep different guitars laying around with different tunings?

Or are you saying if I went out and bought more awesome guitars I’d miraculously become competent with alternate tunings? Because if that’s the case I’d be willing to try.

[jimmyjazz 45998]

Just that it's a lot easier to write in alternate tunings if you don't have re-tune your one good guitar all the time.

[SameSame 1705]

On 4/26/2023 at 10:22 AM, Seasick Sailor said:

Another one from Weathervanes:

 

Love that and it's burned in my head since I heard it yesterday.  And also the amount of times I heard not to wash the cast iron skillet and other learned nonsense as a youth, just adds much to it.  Those lines and scenarios are taken directly from the town I grew up in, the towns a lot of people grew up in.  Sweet, and fucked up.

[Celery Man 20979]

I haven’t gone out and learned every Isbell song but I feel like it’s mostly standard or DADGBE/DADGBD. And it is hella worth becoming competent in drop d. You can learn Cover Me Up, Speed Trap Town, and Relatively Easy (also love that song, feels very sobriety centric to me but applicable across different challenges to serenity) in one swoop.

[IDIOTsavant 8499]

Put me down for:

Relatively Easy

Last of My Kind

Dress Blues

Speed Trap Town

Only Children

It’s probably these right now with God Damned Lonely Love, Streetlights, and Never Gonna Change at various points jockeying for position. He’s got a lot of really good stuff, but at this point, so much of it feels interchangeable. 

[Celery Man 20979]

Also love Stockholm - the vocal harmonies, and it’s a great example of how Isbell writes songs that are both straightforward and a little complex in their arrangement.

[SameSame 1705]

14 minutes ago, IDIOTsavant said:

Put me down for:

Relatively Easy

Last of My Kind

Dress Blues

Speed Trap Town

Only Children

It’s probably these right now with God Damned Lonely Love, Streetlights, and Never Gonna Change at various points jockeying for position. He’s got a lot of really good stuff, but at this point, so much of it feels interchangeable. 

I looked at twitter this morning and one of the first posts that popped up was Zach Bryan quoting lyrics from Dress Blues.  I guess just because.

[jimmyjazz 45998]

I'm not sure I could ever leave "Elephant" out of my top 5.  I came to Isbell later than most, but that was the song that sucked the wind right out of me.  

[Al_4_ISU 12471]

1 hour ago, SameSame said:

Love that and it's burned in my head since I heard it yesterday.  And also the amount of times I heard not to wash the cast iron skillet and other learned nonsense as a youth, just adds much to it.  Those lines and scenarios are taken directly from the town I grew up in, the towns a lot of people grew up in.  Sweet, and fucked up.

You wash your cast iron skillet?

I rinse mine, but soap does not touch it 

[Celery Man 20979]

It’s actually fine to wash cast iron with soap, you just need to dry it. The idea that soap will remove the seasoning comes from back in the day when it contained lye.

I don’t always wash my raw cast iron, but sometimes I do.

[SameSame 1705]

5 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

You wash your cast iron skillet?

I rinse mine, but soap does not touch it 

We were told never to touch it, don't wash it you ruin the oil or grease.  You can wash it, don't put it in a dishwasher

[SameSame 1705]

On the Isbell list there would be so many trading places in my top 5.  I was a passing fan of Drive By Truckers and early Isbell, then for whatever reason when Southeastern came out the first song I heard was Flying Over Water and it instantly clicked.  Right place right time and it hit me square.

Because of that, Flying over water will always be at the top for me.

[Al_4_ISU 12471]

I love Flying Over Water.  Killer melody, incredible lyrics, and soaring guitars.  Total package.

[Celery Man 20979]

I had The Dirty South but didn't even know about Jason Isbell (i bought that album early freshman year, and the first time I encountered Wikipedia was at the end of the first semester - different fucking world when it came to learning general info about bands). "Cover Me Up" was a song that I think YouTube pushed me towards after I started listening to Sturgill, who showed up on the Maron podcast and whose name i recognized from an earlier iteration of this thread. And I wound up driving to Waterloo and buying both Southeastern and Nashville Sound, and I often get certain songs from those two albums fucked up - I would've said that Flying Over Water was on Nashville Sound.

This is such a great verse

In the heat I saw you rising from the dirt
Drunk, in tears and tugging at your skirt
If only you could tell me then what part of you got hurt
In the heat I saw you rising from the dirt

It's not even wordplay or anything, it's the imagery but also just something about the way the syllables are ordered. "if only you could tell me then what part of you got hurt" goddamn.

[noharleyyet 2838]

On 4/26/2023 at 10:22 AM, Seasick Sailor said:

Another one from Weathervanes:

 

Damn...

[SameSame 1705]

There's a few too many years on this hotel
She used to be a beauty you can tell
The lights down in the lobby they don't shine
They just flicker while the elevator whines

And the couple in the corner of the bar 
Have traveled light and clearly traveled far
She's got nothing left to learn about his heart
They're sitting there a thousand miles apart

[UTexasFight 9514]

This is going to be so incredible. The singles released so far are excellent

Tweedy produced Rodney Crowell album recorded at Wilco’s studio in Chicago 

https://www.rodneycrowell.com/the-chicago-sessions

Edited April 29, 2023 by UTexasFight

[bluto 4934]

I’ve probably plugged it a few times on this thread already but Rodney Crowell’s memoir Chinaberry Sidewalk is so very good. Any of you old farts that grew up in Houston, I bet it’d smack you in the face with nostalgia as well. 

[jimmyjazz 45998]

Rodney Crowell is one of those guys that I swear I shouldn't really like, and then I hear another song and think "damn, The Houston Kid is really, really good".

[Al_4_ISU 12471]

There's a few too many years on this hotel
She used to be a beauty you can tell
The lights down in the lobby they don't shine
They just flicker while the elevator whines

And the couple in the corner of the bar 
Have traveled light and clearly traveled far
She's got nothing left to learn about his heart
They're sitting there a thousand miles apart

I had to Google those lyrics to figure out what song it was from.

That’s a brilliant verse, but I find that song’s melody and arrangement so bland that I’ve probably never listened to the whole thing.

[tbone_ 14133]

What tune is that?

[bluto 4934]

Flagship and agree the lyrics are great but everything else is fairly meh. 

[UTexasFight 9514]

13 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Rodney Crowell is one of those guys that I swear I shouldn't really like, and then I hear another song and think "damn, The Houston Kid is really, really good".

These are the words that were escaping me.

perfectly said 

[tbone_ 14133]

Just realized Amazon Prime
Is broadcasting Stagecoach live. Tyler Childers is on now. Chris Stapleton coming up later.

[tbone_ 14133]

Brooks and Dunn on now. Holy shit they can’t sing anymore. Even the great Ronnie Dunn. Bummer.

[bluto 4934]

Why is there a “shouldn’t like Rodney” sentiment? 

[tbone_ 14133]

You know who can sing? Chris fn Stapleton that’s who. Damn he’s good.

[Al_4_ISU 12471]

5 hours ago, bluto said:

Why is there a “shouldn’t like Rodney” sentiment? 

No shit.  The guy wrote “Ain’t Living Long Like This”.

[jimmyjazz 45998]

14 hours ago, bluto said:

Why is there a “shouldn’t like Rodney” sentiment? 

There is one?

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

On 5/1/2023 at 5:40 AM, Al_4_ISU said:

No shit.  The guy wrote “Ain’t Living Long Like This”.

And Song for the Life