Me and Mr Jones

Far away the country singer that I have the most time for

















The world of regret and shame he puts into the word "foolish"

A few other country things I love



Not for the sentiment, but just the peal of the chorus, the keening nasal explosion of voice




Tried to persuade a girlfriend that this song was in its own way as harrowing as Joy Division

She wasn't buying it

(But it is coming from the same place as "Love Will Tear Us Apart" - mundane pain, stoic dignity)

Country was on the alt-indie agenda for a moment in the Eighties



The best song on the second Commotions album - the only one good enough to be on Rattlesnakes

Costello ahead of the game here (1981)  but the Almost Blue album is a void, the only one in that run from True to Punch that leaves me numb

Most alt-indie takes on country were pretty tepid

One of the exceptions



Things got so desperate in the Bad Music Era, I even bought a Jason and the Scorchers album  - big mistake

Countryisms and Americana in general was a big contributory factor to the badness of the Bad Music Era

Gram Parsons = a very hip reference point for a moment there



I used to find that song very touching - "thought about a calico bonnet from Cheyenne to Tennessee" but I can't re-access the feeling now

Almost none of that country rock (late Sixties school or the 80s redux) compares to the real thing, by which I mean the straight down the line Nashville mainstream, countrypolitan strings and all

Less interested in the supposedly real-er thing.

the Outlaw movement etc

And never got around to Joe Ely

I was just looking at a picture of him and thinking he had that Montgomery Cliff cleancut look that Joe Strummer had

not realising that he done this



and actually sung on the Clash original

some kind of mirror image narcissism attraction syndrome going on there between the two Joes