13 May 2020
Five years back or so I saw Billy Bragg in concert. At the musical performance drew to a close Mr. Bragg performed a Woody Guthrie song. When he finished the tune, Bragg spoke in a considered tone to the audience urging them to be angry about what was going on in the political world. He then very eloquently said, “But don’t be cynical, cynicism is the enemy of meaningful change.” This was the first time I had heard a performer with a social conscience speak out loud what I had felt in my heart for a long time.
If this is supposed to be an appreciation of the music of James McMurtry why am I quoting Billy Bragg thoughts on political engagement. Well, that is a good question. Maybe it because I get a sense from McMurtry of an awareness of the reality of living in America in these times. His music has a bit of a political edge to it but it isn’t overtly despairing. He sings of people doing the best they can. Sometimes his song’s characters are failing at life’s race. However, he isn’t looking down at them.
Over a career that has spanned several decades, using his electric guitar the way a gunslinger used a peacemaker, McMurtry has chronicled the changes in America with the sharpest of eyes. He draws a bead on the myth of America and shoots holes in it. Songs like Out Here in the Middle and We Can’t Make It Here Anymore are as hard and biting as anything Springsteen has written. Look at lyrics like this:
Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore
Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in?
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today?
No, I hate the men who sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their shit don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in the damn little war
And we can't make it here anymore
We Can’t Make It Here Anymore
Americana is a term to describe a wide swath of music these days. It covers everything from return to the roots of Appalachia music in the stylings of Gillian Welch to the smooth blues of Bonnie Raitt, to the eclectic English music of Richard Thompson. Americana as it is defined in a dictionary somewhere is, “things/artifacts associated with the culture and history of the United States”.
Any way you try and twist that term James McMurtry hits the sweet spot of the genre. Singing of his uncle making meth on his Oklahoma quarter section to talking about Memorial Day travel including the fatal accidents that arise to singing about the positive values of living out in the middle of America, McMurtry is clearly showing us a real vision of today’s American culture. One of his songs that caught my eye back at the 1980s was I’m Not from Here. Having moved six hundred miles from where I grew up and was raised, I so understood the song.
I'm not from here
I just live here
Grew up somewhere far away
Came here thinking I'd never stay long
I'd be going back soon someday
It's been a few years since I got here
Seen `em come and I've seen `em go
Crowds assemble, they hang out awhile
Then they melt away like an early snow
Onto some bright future somewhere
Down the road to points unknown
Sending post cards when they get there
Wherever it is they think they're goin'
I’m Not From Here by James McMurtry
McMurtry writes Americana music in an observational tone. From the lyrics it is clear he feels hurt at the path America has travelled over the last forty-five years, but his tone isn’t cynical. McMurtry is just trying to give you something to consider as you are drinking that expensive Mocha Mocha in a shiny coffee shop on what was farmland twenty fives years ago. When you drop a drop of that rich chocolate on that button-down shirt you are wearing, a shirt that fifty years ago would have been made in a mill in North Carolina or Massachusetts but now comes from Bangladesh, McMurtry wants you to think about what all of this cost our American soul.
What the music of James McMurtry offers us is a mirror showing us what we have become warts and all. His words are precise and carry a clear image of our world today delivered with a driving beat, almost rockabilly, and a southwestern twang. The music he purveys lets you tap your finger on the table, or your toes on the floor, as you think of the journey from there to here. Me, I lived the lyrics that follow and that keeps me listening.
I've had enough of this small town bullshit
I'm not stayin' in school
I'm makin' good dough workin' with my brother
Cleanin' out pools
I'm going out to California
And man it won't be long
As soon as I get my license
Color me gone.
Oh knock it off Johnny
Man, your livin' in your head
You ain't even got a car
And those chicks don't believe a word ya said
But you're doin' all the talkin'
So I just keep quiet
And this'll probably go no where
But I can't blame ya for tryin'
It's just us kids hangin' round the park at night
Hangin' round 'neath the vapor light
We got no drugs and we got no guns
Not even botherin' anyone
Just Us Kids by James McMurtry
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