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| The Low Highway 2013 |
669 Miles To Go
This isn't the first time Steve Earle has guided a tour of The Low Highway, just the latest in his nearly four-decade career.
"My hitchhiking days are long behind me now," he explains in the liner notes, before later adding. "I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now and I never get tired of the view."
Seen through Earle's egalitarian eye, it's a bumpy road for many of his songs' characters, but not for listeners who reap the rewards of The Dukes (& Duchesses) coming along for the ride.
They provide the growling guitars, gale-force fiddle storms and accordion accents that bring the lows and highs of Earle's latest to life with musical twists that acoustic guitars alone don't allow.
"And the ghost of America watchin' me/Through the broken windows of the factories/Naked bones of a better day," he sings in the title track. "As I rolled down the low highway."
Calico County is a rocking return to Copperhead Road with meth the new drug and industry of choice.
The haunting disenchantment in Burnin' It Down brings the narrator to the consideration point of using "10 gallons of gas and a bottle of propane/Electric igniter off my grill ..." to blow up his hometown Wal Mart.
Despite the dark despair of the three opening songs, there's plenty of light along The Low Highway.
That All You Got and After Mardi Gras are tributes to The Big Easy and its undying survival and party instincts. The former features Earle's wife Allison Moorer on lead vocals.
Love's Gonna Blow My Way, Pocket Full Of Rain - the jazzy gem of the collection - and Invisible angle through the anguished hopes many hold onto in today's troubled times.
Earle also bends down Bruce Springsteen Boulevard on 21st Century, as he wonders why he doesn't have the Star Trek toys and "the future that Kennedy promised me."
Remember Me provides the final exit on The Low Highway with a prayer for his and Moorer's 3-year-old son John Henry that's reminiscent of Warren Zevon's Keep Me In Your Heart.
"Remember me on a stormy night/When there's no sign of shelter in sight/And you soldier on through to the light/'Cause that's all you see/Remember me."
This trip down The Low Highway is impossible to forget.
Song For The Soundtrack: 21st Century Blues
"My hitchhiking days are long behind me now," he explains in the liner notes, before later adding. "I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now and I never get tired of the view."
Seen through Earle's egalitarian eye, it's a bumpy road for many of his songs' characters, but not for listeners who reap the rewards of The Dukes (& Duchesses) coming along for the ride.
They provide the growling guitars, gale-force fiddle storms and accordion accents that bring the lows and highs of Earle's latest to life with musical twists that acoustic guitars alone don't allow.
"And the ghost of America watchin' me/Through the broken windows of the factories/Naked bones of a better day," he sings in the title track. "As I rolled down the low highway."
Calico County is a rocking return to Copperhead Road with meth the new drug and industry of choice.
The haunting disenchantment in Burnin' It Down brings the narrator to the consideration point of using "10 gallons of gas and a bottle of propane/Electric igniter off my grill ..." to blow up his hometown Wal Mart.
Despite the dark despair of the three opening songs, there's plenty of light along The Low Highway.
That All You Got and After Mardi Gras are tributes to The Big Easy and its undying survival and party instincts. The former features Earle's wife Allison Moorer on lead vocals.
Love's Gonna Blow My Way, Pocket Full Of Rain - the jazzy gem of the collection - and Invisible angle through the anguished hopes many hold onto in today's troubled times.
Earle also bends down Bruce Springsteen Boulevard on 21st Century, as he wonders why he doesn't have the Star Trek toys and "the future that Kennedy promised me."
Remember Me provides the final exit on The Low Highway with a prayer for his and Moorer's 3-year-old son John Henry that's reminiscent of Warren Zevon's Keep Me In Your Heart.
"Remember me on a stormy night/When there's no sign of shelter in sight/And you soldier on through to the light/'Cause that's all you see/Remember me."
This trip down The Low Highway is impossible to forget.
Song For The Soundtrack: 21st Century Blues
Running Data For Wednesday, May 8:
4.08 Miles
42:24
Mileage In The Change Jar: 0.03 Miles
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