submissions
| Jason Isbell – 24 Frames Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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The discussion of God's role in the universe is most interesting to me. Most cultures and religions teach that God has some master plan for the way things turn out. Child dies at birth, teen killed in auto accident, a plane goes down - because "that's what God wanted." (As an aside right here, check our Roger Waters' video for a song called "What God Wants," and ask yourself, "Really?") Isabel is saying God, who may or may not have put everything into motion here, isn't the conductor of YOUR universe. He's the pipe bomb that explodes and leaves you to figure out how to do damage control. In fact, damage control is the human condition. And then Isbell challenges us to think of everything we've constructed, the houses, the cars, the fame and adulation (for some) and where would you be if that old pipe-bomber snatched it away in a second - those infant deaths, car wrecks and plane crashed we think he has some organized plan for. Musically simple, lyrically brilliant, Jason Isbell. |
submissions
| Jason Isbell – Live Oak Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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When you hear a song like this you take a step back and marvel at the creative genius displayed by true artists. While Isbell claims the song is about getting sober, it's just as much about being a drunk. I worked in Chicago for a time and lived in the nearest west suburb of the city and took the El trains back and forth to work. The city itself was dry (as in Prohibition dry), but its neighbor was not. As a result, I would go two stops further down the line every Friday to stop a the liquor store at the end of the line in the neighboring town and buy a case of Jack Daniels. I worked myself up to a fifth a night, and an extra stop or two every week before it was over. I was single and had a friend and his wife over one night and he watched in amazement as I downed the fifth during the course of the evening. I remember him asking me as left that morning "Are you alright?" I nodded and said, "sure," and waived good night. I got up each morning, showered, shaved and went to work. The bottle cost me several of the most meaningful relationships of my 20s. I know that while I've been sober for 30 years, that man still walks beside me, more so to remind me of what I was and what I had done than to be confused as to who I am by others. He's my ghost. The murders and the metaphorical death in the song are about those losses I talked about along the way. While Isbell says the song's about getting sober (which if he says it is, it is) in my estimation a much better ode to sobriety is "Cover Me Up." |
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