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Trollheart · 05-03-2011, 09:36 AM

Copperhead Road --- Steve Earle --- 1988 (MCA)
Sometimes you just take a chance. I've occasionally bought books whose cover just drew me in, so much so that I never bothered flipping them over to read the synopsis. Sometimes that's worked, sometimes not. There haven't been too many occasions though where I bought an album without knowing anything at all about the artiste, but that was exactly what happened the day I walked into Tower Records in Dublin and set my eyes on the sleeve of Steve Earle's “Copperhead Road” album.

Steve who, you say? Never heard of him! Me neither. Not then anyway. I had absolutely zero idea who he was, what sort of music he played, even if he was a he, and not some sort of euphemism for a band name! But that sleeve! You just couldn't help but be drawn to it. Hell, for all I knew, the guy (if he was a guy!) could have played grunge or disco or even classical, but the message on the album cover did not bespeak that. A snarling, grinning skull-and-crossbones stared out of what looked like a patch on a US Special Forces jacket, with Steve's name emblazoned above in yellow on red, and the album name in a sort of scroll undeneath, done in that sort of “Old Western” type. I flipped it over and looked at the back, One MEAN mofo looked out at me: a rough, tough sonofabitch with arms like tree-trunks covered in tattoos, long wild hair, wearing sunglasses and looking like he chewed beer-bottles for breakfast, standing in the midst of what was either an explosion or a dusty Texas road. Hell, you had to know this guy was tough, and his music would be raw, powerful and in-your-face.

I had to have the album!

And so I nervously slipped the disc out of its sleeve and onto the turntable, and the first sounds I heard were what sounded like bagpipes to me, but on checking now I think maybe violin? Anyway, not the thunderous reassurance I had expected or hoped for, Mister Earle! What are you DOING to me?

But then the first few bars went by, and the violin cut off, to be pounded into submission by stomping drums, and a banjo, bass, and then that growl which I learned to love and respect, the kind of voice you can only get from twenty or thirty years' hard drinkin' and smokin'. The kind of gravelly, raspy but attention-getting rasp that can only be found in the bottom of many bottles of Jack Daniels, chain-smokin' your way to Hell astride a Harley and laughin' in the face of the Devil hisself! The voice of Steve Earle, snarling “My name's John Lee Pettimore/Same as my daddy and his daddy before”.

Disco this was not!

Even at that though, the title track (for such it was) lopes along at a relatively sedate pace, sort of like an army marching, but you just sort of know that it's building to something, and when Steve growls “You could smell the whiskey burnin' down Copperhead Road!” the song just takes off, with the drums hammering out and laying down covering fire while Steve charges into battle with his band, and the song powers to its breathelss conclusion. As Cartman would say, sweet!

The song is, as I would find out later, like most of Steve's songs, quite politically-charged. I'm not entirely sure where Steve's political loyalties lie, if anywhere, but I have learned that he vehemently opposes the death penalty, and is very much against war in general, particularly the current “war for profit” of the Bush administration, and one would have to say, the following Obama one too, so far. “Copperhead Road” tells the story of a Vietnam vet who comes back from the war and sets up a drug-still where his grandfather used to make moonshine: “I take the seeds from Columbia and Mexico/ I just plant 'em in the holler down Copperhead Road.” Indeed, the song ends with a warning to the DEA, as Steve snarls “I learned a thing or two from Charlie, don't ya know/ You better stay away from Copperhead Road!” I'd heed his advice!

No sooner have you got your breath back than he's off again, this time again fooling with a honky-tonk piano line that then quickly morphs into heavy gee-tar and thumping drums, as “Snake oil” assails the ears, the tale of those conmen of old (and not so old) who would sell the unsuspecting --- and the downright stupid! --- a cure for anything they needed, as long as they had the cash. “Snake oil” gets into the political vibe too, with Steve quipping “Ain't your president good to you? / Knocked 'em dead in Libya. Grenada too/ Now he's taking his show a little further down the line/ Between me and him, people/ You're gonna get along just fine!” The honky-tonk piano keeps a great jangling beat right through the song, and it ends on a flourish on the piano, with Steve remarking in approval at the end “I knew there was a first-taker on this album somewhere!”

The heavy vibe keeps going for “Back to the wall”, a tough-talking, no-nonsense tale of being on your uppers: “Keep yourself to yourself/ Keep your bedroll dry / Boy you never can tell/ What the shadows hide/ Keep one eye on the ground/ Pick up whatever your find/ Cos you got no place to fall/ When your back's to the wall.” It's angry stuff, and you can tell Steve knows what he's talking about here. He ain't just singing about it, he's lived it. He's had his back to the wall, he knows what it's like.

I'm not even now certain of Steve's stance on gun law. He has been known to introduce “The Devils' Right Hand” with the following warning: “This ain't a song about gun control. It's already too late in America for that!” It's a great little tune, sort of a country/bluegrass feel to it, about how a kid thinks having a gun is so cool, but his mother tells him “The pistol is the Devils' right hand.” Not heeding this warning, the kid buys one when he is old enough and pays the inevitable consequence. “They asked me how I pleaded/ Not guilty I said/ Not guilty I said, ya got the wrong man/ Nothin' touched the trigger but the Devils' right hand!” Whether this is autobiographical or not I don't know --- Steve has had trouble with arms dealing in the past, so maybe, or maybe it's just his attempt to de-glamourise the idea of owning a gun. Either way, it's an impressive effort from a Texan!

The anger, somewhat diluted for the previous track, returns with a vengeance for the next track, “Johnny come lately”, which features, believe it or not, the Pogues, and is almost a jig or reel (never could tell the difference), but with what has now become Steve's signature heavy rhythm. The song recounts the difference between the way the homecoming heroes from World War II were treated as opposed to those returning from the 'Nam. “I'm standin' on a corner in San Diego/ Coupla Purple Hearts so I move a little slow/ Nobody here, maybe nobody knows/ Bout a place called Vietnam.”

When “Copperhead Road” was first released we hadn't too many CDs, and I bought it on vinyl, so I think I'm justified in saying that brings to a close side one of the album, and reviews of it mostly agreed that it is, like many a football match, a game of two halves. Side one is powerful, gritty, gutsy and daring, whereas, in general, side two contains more formulaic love songs, but still good stuff.Threre's nothing wrong with a Steve Earle ballad: many appear on his other albums --- but there are far better than what's on offer here. For examples, try “Poison lovers” or the excellent “Christmas in Washington” from 1997's “El Corazon”, “I don't wanna lose you yet” or the superlative “Over yonder” from 2000's “Transcendental blues”, or even back to his second release, 1987's “Exit 0”, for “It's all up to you”. By comparison, the likes of “Even when I'm blue”, which kicks off the second side of the album, is ordinary fare. It's good, it's reasonably heavy, but after the power of the previous five tracks it tends to less than satisfy, sort of like watching a great movie to the point where you can't wait to see how it ends, and it ends badly.

“You belong to me” gets a little rockier, carried on a sold rhythm section, but it's a little sparse: even the theme is somewhat hackneyed. “Waiting on you” is better: I just like the tune, I like the keyboard/organ outro, it just sounds better to me. It's also one of the only tracks on the album not written exclusively by Steve: on this one he collaborates with Richard Bennet, longtime contributor to Neil Diamond, wouldya believe, and lead guitarist on the famous hit by the Bellamy Brothers, “Let your love flow”. On the penultimate track, the fairly sub-standard “Once you love”, Steve teams up with Larry Crane, about whom I admit I know very little, other than he's a sound engineer and once ran his own studio.

The album comes to a close on a track most reviewers called “cheesy” (well, the polite ones did!) and “Christmassy”, but while it does have a very commercial feel about it, and sounds like it was actually written for the Yuletide Season, I like “Nothing but a child”. It's very acoustic and understated, and to me, more a song of hope and forgiveness that closes an album that opened with such venom and anger, and I believe says a lot about the artiste, and the journey he has undertaken to arrive where he is now. I think the closing lines of the song (and therefore the album) say it best:

“Nothing but a child/ Can wash those tears away/ And guide a weary world/ Into the light of day/ And nothing but a child/ Can help erase those miles/ So once again we all / Can be children for a while.”

Or maybe you prefer “You better stay away from Copperhead Road”? Either way, if you know nothing of Steve Earle, you could do a lot worse than check out this offering from a true country/rock soul poet, a Man For Our Times, or, to quote him from a later album, “Just a regular guy.”

Tracklisting
1. Copperhead Road
2. Snake oil
3. Back to the wall
4. The Devil's right hand
5. Johnny come lately
6. Even when I'm blue
7. You belong to me
8. Waiting on you
9. Once you love
10. Nothing but a child

Suggested further listening: "The hard way", "El corazon", "Transcendental blues", "I feel alright"

05-03-2011, 09:36 AM	#7 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,970	The upside of judging a book (or record) by its cover: discovering a fearless heart. Copperhead Road --- Steve Earle --- 1988 (MCA) Sometimes you just take a chance. I've occasionally bought books whose cover just drew me in, so much so that I never bothered flipping them over to read the synopsis. Sometimes that's worked, sometimes not. There haven't been too many occasions though where I bought an album without knowing anything at all about the artiste, but that was exactly what happened the day I walked into Tower Records in Dublin and set my eyes on the sleeve of Steve Earle's “Copperhead Road” album. Steve who, you say? Never heard of him! Me neither. Not then anyway. I had absolutely zero idea who he was, what sort of music he played, even if he was a he, and not some sort of euphemism for a band name! But that sleeve! You just couldn't help but be drawn to it. Hell, for all I knew, the guy (if he was a guy!) could have played grunge or disco or even classical, but the message on the album cover did not bespeak that. A snarling, grinning skull-and-crossbones stared out of what looked like a patch on a US Special Forces jacket, with Steve's name emblazoned above in yellow on red, and the album name in a sort of scroll undeneath, done in that sort of “Old Western” type. I flipped it over and looked at the back, One MEAN mofo looked out at me: a rough, tough sonofabitch with arms like tree-trunks covered in tattoos, long wild hair, wearing sunglasses and looking like he chewed beer-bottles for breakfast, standing in the midst of what was either an explosion or a dusty Texas road. Hell, you had to know this guy was tough, and his music would be raw, powerful and in-your-face. I had to have the album! And so I nervously slipped the disc out of its sleeve and onto the turntable, and the first sounds I heard were what sounded like bagpipes to me, but on checking now I think maybe violin? Anyway, not the thunderous reassurance I had expected or hoped for, Mister Earle! What are you DOING to me? But then the first few bars went by, and the violin cut off, to be pounded into submission by stomping drums, and a banjo, bass, and then that growl which I learned to love and respect, the kind of voice you can only get from twenty or thirty years' hard drinkin' and smokin'. The kind of gravelly, raspy but attention-getting rasp that can only be found in the bottom of many bottles of Jack Daniels, chain-smokin' your way to Hell astride a Harley and laughin' in the face of the Devil hisself! The voice of Steve Earle, snarling “My name's John Lee Pettimore/Same as my daddy and his daddy before”. Disco this was not! Even at that though, the title track (for such it was) lopes along at a relatively sedate pace, sort of like an army marching, but you just sort of know that it's building to something, and when Steve growls “You could smell the whiskey burnin' down Copperhead Road!” the song just takes off, with the drums hammering out and laying down covering fire while Steve charges into battle with his band, and the song powers to its breathelss conclusion. As Cartman would say, sweet! The song is, as I would find out later, like most of Steve's songs, quite politically-charged. I'm not entirely sure where Steve's political loyalties lie, if anywhere, but I have learned that he vehemently opposes the death penalty, and is very much against war in general, particularly the current “war for profit” of the Bush administration, and one would have to say, the following Obama one too, so far. “Copperhead Road” tells the story of a Vietnam vet who comes back from the war and sets up a drug-still where his grandfather used to make moonshine: “I take the seeds from Columbia and Mexico/ I just plant 'em in the holler down Copperhead Road.” Indeed, the song ends with a warning to the DEA, as Steve snarls “I learned a thing or two from Charlie, don't ya know/ You better stay away from Copperhead Road!” I'd heed his advice! No sooner have you got your breath back than he's off again, this time again fooling with a honky-tonk piano line that then quickly morphs into heavy gee-tar and thumping drums, as “Snake oil” assails the ears, the tale of those conmen of old (and not so old) who would sell the unsuspecting --- and the downright stupid! --- a cure for anything they needed, as long as they had the cash. “Snake oil” gets into the political vibe too, with Steve quipping “Ain't your president good to you? / Knocked 'em dead in Libya. Grenada too/ Now he's taking his show a little further down the line/ Between me and him, people/ You're gonna get along just fine!” The honky-tonk piano keeps a great jangling beat right through the song, and it ends on a flourish on the piano, with Steve remarking in approval at the end “I knew there was a first-taker on this album somewhere!” The heavy vibe keeps going for “Back to the wall”, a tough-talking, no-nonsense tale of being on your uppers: “Keep yourself to yourself/ Keep your bedroll dry / Boy you never can tell/ What the shadows hide/ Keep one eye on the ground/ Pick up whatever your find/ Cos you got no place to fall/ When your back's to the wall.” It's angry stuff, and you can tell Steve knows what he's talking about here. He ain't just singing about it, he's lived it. He's had his back to the wall, he knows what it's like. I'm not even now certain of Steve's stance on gun law. He has been known to introduce “The Devils' Right Hand” with the following warning: “This ain't a song about gun control. It's already too late in America for that!” It's a great little tune, sort of a country/bluegrass feel to it, about how a kid thinks having a gun is so cool, but his mother tells him “The pistol is the Devils' right hand.” Not heeding this warning, the kid buys one when he is old enough and pays the inevitable consequence. “They asked me how I pleaded/ Not guilty I said/ Not guilty I said, ya got the wrong man/ Nothin' touched the trigger but the Devils' right hand!” Whether this is autobiographical or not I don't know --- Steve has had trouble with arms dealing in the past, so maybe, or maybe it's just his attempt to de-glamourise the idea of owning a gun. Either way, it's an impressive effort from a Texan! The anger, somewhat diluted for the previous track, returns with a vengeance for the next track, “Johnny come lately”, which features, believe it or not, the Pogues, and is almost a jig or reel (never could tell the difference), but with what has now become Steve's signature heavy rhythm. The song recounts the difference between the way the homecoming heroes from World War II were treated as opposed to those returning from the 'Nam. “I'm standin' on a corner in San Diego/ Coupla Purple Hearts so I move a little slow/ Nobody here, maybe nobody knows/ Bout a place called Vietnam.” When “Copperhead Road” was first released we hadn't too many CDs, and I bought it on vinyl, so I think I'm justified in saying that brings to a close side one of the album, and reviews of it mostly agreed that it is, like many a football match, a game of two halves. Side one is powerful, gritty, gutsy and daring, whereas, in general, side two contains more formulaic love songs, but still good stuff.Threre's nothing wrong with a Steve Earle ballad: many appear on his other albums --- but there are far better than what's on offer here. For examples, try “Poison lovers” or the excellent “Christmas in Washington” from 1997's “El Corazon”, “I don't wanna lose you yet” or the superlative “Over yonder” from 2000's “Transcendental blues”, or even back to his second release, 1987's “Exit 0”, for “It's all up to you”. By comparison, the likes of “Even when I'm blue”, which kicks off the second side of the album, is ordinary fare. It's good, it's reasonably heavy, but after the power of the previous five tracks it tends to less than satisfy, sort of like watching a great movie to the point where you can't wait to see how it ends, and it ends badly. “You belong to me” gets a little rockier, carried on a sold rhythm section, but it's a little sparse: even the theme is somewhat hackneyed. “Waiting on you” is better: I just like the tune, I like the keyboard/organ outro, it just sounds better to me. It's also one of the only tracks on the album not written exclusively by Steve: on this one he collaborates with Richard Bennet, longtime contributor to Neil Diamond, wouldya believe, and lead guitarist on the famous hit by the Bellamy Brothers, “Let your love flow”. On the penultimate track, the fairly sub-standard “Once you love”, Steve teams up with Larry Crane, about whom I admit I know very little, other than he's a sound engineer and once ran his own studio. The album comes to a close on a track most reviewers called “cheesy” (well, the polite ones did!) and “Christmassy”, but while it does have a very commercial feel about it, and sounds like it was actually written for the Yuletide Season, I like “Nothing but a child”. It's very acoustic and understated, and to me, more a song of hope and forgiveness that closes an album that opened with such venom and anger, and I believe says a lot about the artiste, and the journey he has undertaken to arrive where he is now. I think the closing lines of the song (and therefore the album) say it best: “Nothing but a child/ Can wash those tears away/ And guide a weary world/ Into the light of day/ And nothing but a child/ Can help erase those miles/ So once again we all / Can be children for a while.” Or maybe you prefer “You better stay away from Copperhead Road”? Either way, if you know nothing of Steve Earle, you could do a lot worse than check out this offering from a true country/rock soul poet, a Man For Our Times, or, to quote him from a later album, “Just a regular guy.” Tracklisting 1. Copperhead Road 2. Snake oil 3. Back to the wall 4. The Devil's right hand 5. Johnny come lately 6. Even when I'm blue 7. You belong to me 8. Waiting on you 9. Once you love 10. Nothing but a child Suggested further listening: "The hard way", "El corazon", "Transcendental blues", "I feel alright" __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018 Last edited by Trollheart; 11-04-2011 at 06:24 AM.