Music Friday: "The Fourth Night of My Drinking"

I forgot about my regular Music Friday post yesterday, so here's a solid tune from the Drive-By Truckers featuring Patterson Hood lyrics.

Musing of the Moment: Natural Weed Killer

This is a common recipe found on the InterWebs, but yesterday I mixed up some all natural weed killer that, looking at where I sprayed today, worked well. 

So I'm providing the recipe here for other folks and for my own referencing. 

Ingredients 
1 gallon of white vinegar
1 cup of iodized salt
A decent squeeze of dish soap

This stuff is tremendously cheaper than Roundup, and it's environmentally friendly. 

Musing of the Moment: Covid-19 & Strippers

With all the economic destruction Covid-19 has brought upon America, no one really thinks about strippers and strip clubs except maybe people who frequented them (full disclosure: I am not one of those people). 

Those ladies have to have found other professions to work in. 

There's no social distancing for lap dances. 

Music Friday: "Sunshine of Your Love"

This tune features one of the best guitar riffs out there. It's a classic. 

Stay groovy, people. 

Music Friday: "Better South"

The new Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit is getting much attention today, but earlier this month American Aquarium's new album, Lamentations, came out too. 

Here's an in-your-face tune I really like from the album. 

My Top Twenty Jason Isbell Songs Prior to Reunions

In anticipation of Isbell's Reunions dropping on Friday, I've seen a number of articles that rank his top twenty songs. 

Of course, musical tastes vary, so the lists have some sleepers, but they also tend to favor slower odes that are introspective. I like those. They are powerful, no doubt. 

I, however, tend to lean toward more rock-oriented songs, so I will just get that bias out of the way. 

Here are my top twenty Isbell songs, and I am not including any songs from Reunions. 

20. "Different Days"

Isbell is a master at presenting narratives of characters we might not focus on. The persona looks back at himself while considering how he would have interacted with a stripper. 





19. "24 Frames"

One of my favorite lyrics is "You thought God was an architect./ Now you know/ he's something like a pipe bomb/ ready to blow./ And everything you built that's all for show/ goes up in flames/ in twenty-four frames." 





18. "Cover Me Up"

The opening tune of Southeastern is a favorite of many Isbell fans if you go by the lists that travel about the InterWebs. It's about recovery and beautifully arranged. It's a solid song. 





17. "Stockholm"

A song about a Swedish city. But it's really about missing a girl. 




16. "Grown"

This song off his first album is sorely under appreciated. It's a tight narrative about a young boy having feelings for an older woman. "Are you still dancing to 'Purple Rain'?" "You taught me how to lust." 




15. "Dress Blues"

This tune was a staple of his early shows, and I suspect he still plays it. As most people know, it was written for his friend who died overseas, which he relates at the start of this video. 





14. "The Life You Chose"

This is a great song about coming back and realizing things are different and regret. In two stanzas he references "Jack and Coke" and The Bell Jar. The man is obviously well read. 





13. "Alabama Pines" 

The jangly guitar riff sets the tone well, and Shires' fiddle works as a backdrop on this tune. To me, it's a song about loneliness. It's a pleasant ear worm. 




12. "Outfit"

I had to get this tune in the top twenty. I debated between this song and "TVA," but this is one of my favorites. This song features good advice from Dad. 




11. "Songs She Sang in the Shower"

This is another underrated song in his catalog that showcases his wry wit. He incorporates Monty Python's "Bring Out Your Dead," for God's sake. 




10. "Never Gonna Change"

This is one of the stronger songs on one of the best ever Southern rock albums: The Dirty South. 





9. "Streetlights" 

This tune has always captured me: a guy sitting at a bar, closing it down, wondering what happened to a lass he wants, and then stumbling back to where he's gonna crash. I guess I can relate. 





8. "Elephant"

I remember when he tweeted about writing this song. As he's stated before, you know it's a powerful song when people cry when hearing it in concert. "We burn these joints in effigy/ and cry about what we used to be./ Try to ignore the elephant somehow./ Somehow..." 





7. "White Man's World" 

A fitting and poignant rumination on white privilege. 





6. "Soldiers Get Strange" 

Of the trio of songs about veterans, this is my favorite. As he stated when I saw him in concert years ago, it's a song about PTSD. 




5. "Stopping By" 

It's a great song about something many people deal with: an absent parent. "I think the best of me is still standing in the doorway." 





4. "Speed Trap Town"

This tune weaves a tightly knit story about loss. At the end when the persona wakes up next to Indian mound, I always think about Moundville, AL. 




3. "Goddamn Lonely Love" (Live from Alabama version)

This is one of his songs that will be played at my funeral. "The sun's a desperate star that burns like every single one before." 





2. "Relatively Easy"

In times like these, you got put things into perspective. 





1. "Hope the High Road"

Whether you agree with statements in the song or not, it's a hell of a tune. 

Musing of the Moment: My First Car

Below is an image of my first car. 

It's a 1978 Buick Regal, aka "Old Blue." I got it when I was 16. That was the color of my car too. When I left for college in 1989, I sold it and didn't have my own car until my senior year when I bought a 1988 Chevy Astrovan, aka the "UAV," from my parents. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I discovered a new word that I need to employ more often in my vocabulary: Blatherskite. Its definition is "a person who talks at great length without making much sense." 

That's a solid description of Moscow Don. 

I got it from an article in the May issue of Harper's by Thomas Frank: "The Pessimistic Style in American Politics: And Its Eternal War on Reform." 

For someone like me who is rather particular about the type of toilet paper his family uses, people hoarding TP angers me. I'm a regular user of Cottonelle and Quilted Northern, but those brands are rarely in stock at my local supermarket unless I go early in the morning. The highbrow Aldi brand TP gets the job done, but it is not as comforting on the nether regions as the aforementioned brands. 

This weekend apparently was one that The Spectrum on SiriusXM featured Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks songs. Fleetwood Mac is highly regarded band from critics, but it was never a group I got into. 

Their tunes are all right, but they are not one of those bands or artists that make me turn the channel like Aerosmith, the Eagles, and Journey. 

In an interview in Esquire, Jason Isbell mentioned Neutral Milk Hotel, a band that made two highly acclaimed indie rock albums in the 90s. That's a band that I need to check out, which sent me to Amazon Music to listen to the album In the Airplane Over the Sea. 

Random Notes from a Crank

An interesting article in The Washington Post relates that some GOP advisors are worried about losing the Senate: "Republicans Grow Nervous about Losing the Senate Amid Worries of Trump's Handling of the Coronavirus."

I've been watching the polling in Senate races for a while now because I am hopeful of the GOP losing a number of those races. The four most talked about are in North Carolina, Maine, Colorado, and Arizona. I am worried about Jones losing in Alabama because, well, it's Alabama. 

I hadn't heard much about the Kansas race (as the article details a bit), but that factor makes sense since the 2016 flipping of Kansas in a number of elections. As a native Iowan, I would love for Ernst to be booted out of office. And I would be extremely happy if Lindsey Graham and Moscow Mitch have to hit the bricks. But those are long shots.  

I've watched a number of Amazon series during the lockdown. 

The Expanse has been a scary, suspense-filled treat. In a lot of these sci-fi novels and television shows though they depict the world as being run by the United Nations, such as in The Expanse and Altered Carbon, which is a bit odd because in our current reality the UN is fairly ineffectual. Regardless, The Expanse has a number of interesting visual representations of the world after climate change. 

I recently finished Beyond the Loop, which is an eerie yet poignant TV series. 

Here are factoids and stats from May's "Harper's Index," which were compiled as of March 2020:

• Percentage of Americans who operate doors and sinks in public restrooms with paper towels to avoid germs: 65
• Who flush with their feet: 44
• Who hover over the toilet seat: 29
• Number of countries that are carbon-negative: 2
• Estimated number of Americans who spend at least three hours commuting each day: $4,300,000
• Percentage of Democrats who believe that their personal finances will improve over the next year: 60
• Of Republicans who do: 83
• Portion of Trump's 2019 tweets that were live responses to Fox New or Fox Business programs: 1/10
• Factor by which Americans go to the library more often than they go to the movies: 2
• Estimated number of dead-end streets in the world: 17,680,000
• Portion of those dead ends that are in the United States: 1/4

Music Friday: "Changes"

Charles Bradley passed away a few years ago. I think I've featured this song before, but I'll do so again. 

Until I watched this video, I didn't know this was a Black Sabbath cover. That shows how big of Black Sabbath fan I am. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I was at the local post office on Monday. People were doing the social distancing thing, which they obviously should. However, the women in line behind me coughed rather raspy directly into her hand. 

They need to do some PSAs for adults about how to properly cough into one's elbow. 

I'm glad that woman was behind me. I got the hell out of there quickly. 

In the recent issue of The Atlantic, Christopher Orr has an interesting essay about Scooby-Doo: "The Secret of Scooby-Doo's Enduring Appeal." 

I admittedly have a thing for red-headed women. I think it all started with Daphne. 

Oh sweet Daphne...

In that same issue, there's a solid article about one health expert's fight for proper treatment for opiod addiction in a part of rural America. The title online is "America's Other Epidemic: A New Approach to Fighting the Opiod Crisis as It Quietly Goes On," but in the print magazine the title is just the quotation, "At 14, I could've pointed out everybody who would be dead." 

Music Friday: "Life Is Grand"

Last week when I was walking my dog, I decided to revisit an old album: Camper Van Beethoven's Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart. 

As album's go, OBRS has to be one of the most complete albums of alternative rock in the 80s. To me, there isn't a dud of a song on that album. 

So to offer some sunshine in dark times, here's the final cut on that album.