Sturgill Simpson

I was one of the guys who discovered his appreciation for country western music on behalf of Trent Reznor. His project with Johnny Cash peeled away the corny ass sheen from the entire genre for me. I never realized there was a difference between country and country western, but once I saw the line, I knew what to immediately ignore and what to occasionally allow.

I had thought every country topic cheesy, every country guitar lick predictable, shit, every country song felt oddly related to the last song I’d heard. I didn’t get it.

Johnny Cash’s ability to write a song about killing a man and have it sound romantic was something that I remember asking my dad about while still in high school. (The following conversation is paraphrased, because foggy memory bro.)

“You think he’s full of shit?” I asked.

“I don’t.” Pops responded.

“So this dude has balls so huge he just kills a guy, and instead of keeping his mouth shut, he writes a song about it and releases it to the world as if writing a song about it absolves him of the crime?” Me says.

“Whether or not the guy actually killed anyone doesn’t matter. The song is everything it’s supposed to be, whether it’s a tall tale or a confession. You don’t just imagine what he’s singing, you actually taste it.” And he kept driving.

My dad so rarely said shit like that about music I think I remember all of those little quips that are so perfectly delivered it’s like he practiced saying the shit before I entered the scene from stage left.

The years following that conversation were filled with me making unbelievably long drives across the country, many of which where my guitar was directly involved. I drove some of those same roads the few country crooners I cared about were croonin about. Armed with only a half empty carton of cigarettes, I had not even a fucking vague idea of what the Fuck I was doing. Alls I knew is that with a smoke and an axe the world was my brothel.

At least that’s what it felt like when I was on these country music benders, where I didn’t listen to anything played through ANYTHING but a fucking telecaster, and if the dude who was singing didn’t have his fucking shirt tucked in, well, I just didn’t care for it. If the topics weren’t painful as shit and with the delivery fucking masculine, yet delicate, well, Fuck it.

Country western wasn’t something I actively dug through, but when something labeled as such hit me, I don’t think I’ve ever resisted the sweet attractive depression finding that perfect country western album instilled in me.

And being an admittedly naive fan of country western, I will attest to some of my more obsessive relationships with country music falling on the shoulders of the $5 tapes near the checkout at highway rest stops. Four packs of Marlboro Reds, a lighter that says BUMPKIN in the same text as the Peterbuilt logo, three honey buns, a king size bag of cheddar combos, three small bags of cornnuts and a six pack of Dr. Pepper, and a “hey, is this Best of ____ tape any good?”.

A swift nod from the listless lady at the checkout register and I had my food for the day, and my music for the month.

I am either all in or “meh” when it comes to country.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY ALL IN THIS LAST MONTH.

I have no idea who he is. I have no idea why I’m constantly listening to him and wiping tears from my eyes. I have no idea why his Metamodern Sounds in Country Music album is fucking murdering my faceholes so hard right now.

Alls I know, is Sturgill Simpson is, honestly, fucking murdering my faceholes so hard right now.

Metamodern Sounds in Country Music is the country album I’m obsessed with currently, but obsessed in a way that it reminds me of the album I was obsessed with in the fall of 1998 it’s so fucking perfect.

Sturgill Simpson’s songwriting is sometimes far closer to the psych genre than mere country, with the guitar players tickling pedals usually reserved for a band of longhairs, but how out of place such guitar effects might seem on paper is nothing to how at home they sound on tape.

Holy fucking jesus balls on a tweed fender deluxe with cigarette burns in the shape of my left ventricle, this entire album sounds like a textbook example of how the album of my life would be recorded. Crisp when necessary, only pouring out of the left channel when necessary, twangy when fitting, low toned the Fuck out when needed, but holy shit is the guitar on straight fucking HUSTLE throughout.

My appreciation for those guitar players who have chicken pickin in their arsenal is relatively new. As a 2009 trip to Nashville to record in a studio where Neil Young once took a shit in the mid-70s had me in dive bars on weeknights with my face in the pickguards of some of the most unassumingly fucking bad ass guitar players I’ve ever experienced.

As a suburban white kid who never knew if his appreciation for anything would be held against me because I was white, and from the suburbs, I give no shits if my fascination with the way some of these cowboys play guitar seems creepy. I mean, have you SEEN these guys fucking MURDER shit without sticking out their tongue, stomping the distortion pedal or demanding all of the stage’s eyes?

The technical ability aside, the guitar playing on Metamodern Sounds in Country Music is so fucking delicious its dripping in its exhibition of fucking class and texture.

I can do nothing but claim this album as my favorite country western collection of perfection of the last two years. Since I’ve already babbled for the last thousand or so words, allow me to award you with scavenger maps to discover a bit of delicious throughout each track the album unfolds, because I simply can’t talk about this album without getting babbly and I CAN’T SHUT UP.

Opening track “Turtles All the Way Down” is almost disarming in how innocent Sturgill sounds at the onset, then the dude has to drop the laundry list of intoxicants as the perfect fucking segue between good ol boy country and “there ain’t shit I ain’t tried twice”. Sturgill pulls his outlaw card hard and early.

“Life of Sin” is the exact bpm and tempo for how I walk when I get ouf of the shower. I’m taut shufflin’ elbows like a muthafucker once I hit the tiles bro. The guitar on this song is why I still wake up in the morning. Holy Fuck. Country might be your thing, but give this fucking guitar your entire attention after a couple of beers, and you will drop trou and assume the position without being asked.

“Living the Dream” sort of reminds me of a Chevy Truck commercial, cept in my version Sturgill is doing all this heavy lifting of hay bales and 55 gallon drums filled with even more 55 gallon drums, and he’s wearing camo shorts and a pink SYFFAL shirt and when the guitar solo comes in he’s fucking playing air guitar too. This song sounds so fucking perfectly country that even Sturgill can’t help but sing along with the rest of us.

What would it feel like to write a song that is so perfect that you want to sing it along with thousands of people at the same time instead of sing it alone, and you're the asshole that wrote it?

The song “Voices” sort of reminds me of when I was finally stoned enough to listen to a Lyle Lovett album without imagining him giving it to Julia Roberts and I was like “dude can sang, dude can write, dude can play. Too bad his name is Lyle.”.

When “Long White Line” comes in I’m fucking that kid sitting as close to the shopping mall Santa reading the Christmas book as possible. The comfortably fucking slick way this guitar is played throughout this entire song is fucking disgusting. You can hear Sturgill vamping, loose right wristed, and the guitar player is just so fucking in the fucking pocket, and ol’ slide player bro is just fucking polishing some fucking MURDER in the back. This whole thing is balls. If this song had a way of describing teamwork with some awesome fucking football analogy, I would have found it and used it, but I can’t but just tell people that I came up with something and you’re just nodding while reading this.

Nod bro. BRO, JUST NOD LIKE I’M TOTALLY DOING WHAT I SAID I WAS DOING ABOVE.

“The Promise” is the Elvis meets Roy Orbison meets Chris Isaak meets black and white Dick Tracy noir shit, but when Sturgill drops the hammer at 3:37 you’re all “DADDD! STOP YELLING! WE GET IT!” but then you’re too busy wiping tears out of your looking holes to realize Simpson just fucking erased all your confidence and replaced it with boo fucking hoo.

“A Little Light” is how I choose to dry my hands after warshing them in a bar bathroom for the rest of my fucking life. Clap happy and perfect. The guitar on this track is another song I would quit playing guitar after I learned how to sound that fucking smooth on.

A few months ago, when I was just starting to understand how important this album was to me, I heard “Just Let Go” at the worst time. I had just let the worst part of me speak to the best part of me and as I got in the car to drive away dude says exactly what I needed to hear five seconds before I got loud. This is my fucking jam, if there ever was a jam I needed to hear, just before I put myself in a jam, when I should have just admitted I wasn’t the man.

Ok, last track, besides the bonus track, which I won’t discuss because it feels wrong to talk about a “bonus”, I mean, it’s free bro, why give anyone any fuel when they can flame that shit any which way they choose after buying this sumbitch?

Last track is “It Ain’t All Flowers”.

At first I was pretty convinced this was on the Sons of Anarchy soundtrack.

There’s just something innately “c’mon bro” about anything artistically related to that show that I almost felt like I was insulting Sturgill Simpson by dropping the SOA hammer on his music, but I’m serious. “It Ain’t All Flowers” is in fact one of the better songs I’ve ever obsessed over in the history of my own obsessions.

The psyche layered bean-dip this song paints on top of itself is fucking genre-wall breaking.

Anyone with half a testicle will understand that you’re entering the song in a country western state of mind, only to immediately recognize you’re in an outlaw southern blues bar, and instead of peanuts on the tables, everyone’s pulling from individually hand-painted jars of opium. I wish I could say I was imaging this, but if there were a remake of Fear and Loathing, from a well-worn denim and chew tobacco point of view, this song would front the charge into all of the holy fucking shit.

I’ve said too much.

Go buy this.