James McMurtry is no ordinary Austin, Texas rocker/balladeer. Before a sellout crowd at the Birchmere in Alexandria Virginia he proved why. Through a set of 12 songs with two encore pieces he rocked the joint while on occasion pitching the audience into a contemplative silence with the luminous ballad Ruby and Carlos or his aching profile of a young meth addict in Fire Line Road.
What makes James’ ballads so luminous while at the same time makes his rockers so bitchin’ ---and luminous? Take Turtle Bayou. The woman the married protagonist was ogling and has now apparently approached isn’t described in generic terms like you usually find in popular songs. Her beauty is conveyed through her ethnicity, through her blood---she’s ‘Scotch-Irish and Cherokee.’ Not only is she exotic. She has the whole of the westward expansion of the American empire in her blood and James in a stroke has made the listener aware of another aspect of his or her cultural heritage--- The Trail of Tears and the American cowboy etc. Damn!
In this sense McMurtry is not for the young. Like all great poets he allows worldly people their world. The young by and large prefer a broader brush. And the crowd at the Birchmere was decidedly older. I will hasten to add that at the 8 by 10 in Baltimore where we saw him earlier this year the crowd was somewhat younger but grey hairs like myself also were there in strength.
McMurtry speaks to experience in his songs. What the poet Ezra Pound called luminous details abound and bring a vivid time transcending immediacy to the songs’ images. In his hell raising rocker, Choctaw Bingo, you can begin with the title. It ain’t just bingo grandma. It’s ‘Choctaw’ Bingo with all of the associative connotations of race, assimilation, imperialism and genocide bubbling just below the surface like the Texas sweet crude that is no more.
The couple going to the family reunion in Oklahoma don’t just load the kids in the car ‘like a half load of pipe’(Holiday), they give the little brats cherry coke and benydril so they’ll sleep during the trip. Again America’s underbelly is in the details.
Bob and Mae on their way to the reunion stop off in ‘Pop’s Knife and Gun shop’ in Tushka, a real place (or at least once) in a real landscape. They don’t just buy a gun or the ubiquitous hip-hop glock. Bob and Mae buy
“[A] SKS rifle and a couple a full cases of that steel core ammo
With the berdan primers from some East bloc nation that no longer needs 'em
And a Desert Eagle that's one great big ol' pistol
I mean .50 caliber made by badass Hebrews
And some surplus tracers for that old BAR of Slayton's…”
Slayton being the old coot with the ranch where the reunion is being held.
Once, again James’ lyrics reveal a detailed, working knowledge of world affairs e.g. the strong glance at international arms trading in the East bloc and Desert Eagle references.
James makes writing and singing these lyrics seem effortless. But they are far from it. You have to be more than seasoned. You have to be intellectually curious and an astute observer of the myriad worlds around you.
Try singing along to Choctaw Bingo. Singing the song demands a kind of circular breathing one usually finds in jazz reed players.
Similarly, James is a master of near rhyme. This opens up a raft of new vocabularies for his songwriting. In his ‘We Can’t Make It Here Anymore’ he writes
“See those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They’re just gonna sit there ‘til they rot”
Or the opening two lines of ‘Hurricane Party’
“The hurricane party's windin' down and we're all waitin' for the end
And I don't won't another drink, I only want that last one again”
Where ‘end’ and ‘again’ two words with diametrically opposed intent are juxtaposed to create the song’s tone of ambivalence and regret. Damn!
The rhyming of ‘dock’ and ‘rot’ in ‘We Can’t Make It Her Anymore’ seems effortless as is the political voice of the song which is at once firm and strident but utterly convincing in the details. In fact, because McMurtry is such a profound observer of the American ethos he can’t help but be political even when he’s struggling to hold together a failing relationship.
And McMurtry can write for women. Whether it’s speaking for them such as the bewilderingly loyal wife in ’Song for Deck Hand’s Daughter’ or the first person/ third person pathos of ‘Fire Line Road’ or the stunning tale of domestic abuse and revenge told in the first person in ‘Lights of Cheyenne.’
Who can do that? What male popular artist can write for the female voice like McMurtry? We might have to look to James Joyce and Molly Bloom for the next rung up.
And the list of great songs goes on one of my favorites being ‘Holiday’ especially the verse where the protagonist remembers the in vivid detail the young Vietnam era soldiers at the bus station years earlier. The protagonist himself is a middle aged reservist waiting for his flight, preparing to go on his second tour in Iraq.
And for what, faux patriotism defined by football and in laws you rather not see; a spike in Highway deaths, it’s all there, the whole wretched imperialist paradigm. The great ugly American truth. Poignant yes. Sentimental never.
“When he traveled with mom, first time on a plane
To visit some kin, he’s forgotten their names
But he remembers the soldiers, still in their teensIn their spit polished boots and their pressed army greens
With the creases so sharp, and their faces so smooth
But their eyes looked so heavy, he wondered how they could move
Now he’s got that same look, like his insides are black
He’s in his mid forties and he has to go backAnd he can’t even smoke while he waits for his plane
The uniform’s different, but the mission remains
To do like they tell you, don’t make a fuss
Why’s not an issue, so don’t think too much
You just do what you have to, shut up and drive
If you come apart later, well at least you’re alive
You can get you some help, you can deal with it then
And life will be better, ‘til it happens again”
As McMurtry says he’s been ‘too long in the wasteland’ to be sentimental. And his wasteland is our wasteland, ironically an experience not to be wasted. Stay in this damnable place with us James. You’re simply brilliant. One of a kind.
