Music Friday: "Choctaw Bingo"

This song by James McMurtry, the son of Larry McMurtry, isn't really about bingo much at all. It's about a family reunion narrated from the point of view of someone who is anticipating the event.

As he sings, "we're gonna have us a time."

McMurtry deserves more critical attention. I don't know why he hasn't garnered more. Maybe it's because his songs are dark and realistic commentaries on the American experience like "I"m Not From Here," "Out Here in the Middle," "Hurricane Party," "Holiday," "Too Long in the Wasteland," and "We Can't Make it Here," which I featured on a Music Friday back in September.

Dark realism rarely sells.

In this song, one of his "hits," McMurtry pulls off song lyrics that string together feeding kids vodka on a car trip, perhaps a mail-order bride, "a great big ol' blue cat," Uncle Slayton cooking up meth instead of making moonshine, an interstate smoke shop, a fatal car wreck, high school football in Texas, a couple buying rifles and handguns with ammo, Rolling Stones lips outside a lingerie store, the narrator being attracted to second cousins in Daisy Dukes, his imagined boner, his uncle filching people with bad credit, and the uncle drinking at a gentlemen's club.

As you can tell, he sees the world through dark lenses.