Thursday, January 15, 2009

get thee behind me Satan


The Louvin Brothers - Satan is Real (lala) and Charley Louvin - Steps to Heaven (lala) for article research. Now, I prefer last year's vintage-country-nerd-oriented Charley Louvin Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs (lala) but there was a time when I would have straight-up knocked you into a table of knick-knacks to get at a copy of Satan is Real were we to both spot it at the garage sale. Just sayin'. I might still, so watch your step. The presence of Satan is perhaps no realer than in a record collector showdown.
Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger (lala) I've listened to this album a zillion times over the years, but the line
Well, it's the same damn tune, it's the man in the moon.
It's the way that I feel about you
in "Hands on the Wheel" stopped me in my tracks. So precise yet still abstract. I love the way country music does that.
Billy Joe Shaver - Everybody's Brother (lala) You should make it out to see Billy Joe Shaver if he blows through town if just to see him up there on stage in a work shirt, flapping his long arms like the wings of the Lord's personal buzzard and for the genius gospel boogie "Get Thee Behind Me Satan"

or the even less subtle "If You Don't Love Jesus (Go to Hell)"

Being the very grinning heathen toward which Shaver's and Louvin's warnings are directed, I have a "thanks anyway for lookin' out for me" feeling toward the sentiments in the songs, but am open to the notion that maybe one day I'll get snatched up by that buzzard's talon and taken high enough so that I can see the same light these humble servants see.

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