Drive-By Truckers
“This Fucking Job” MP3
Jan 22, 2010
Patterson Hood has already gone on record several times saying that the Drive-By Truckers’ tenth studio LP, The Big-To, is “very much a rock album. Very melodic and more rocking than anything since disc 2 of Southern Rock Opera.” The dark subject matter that’s typified the Truckers since that seminal release is in full effect on the official follow-up to 2008’s Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
The 13-song collection ruminates on topics such as the death of two loved ones (Jerry Wexler, Jim Dickinson), a Tennessee homocide of a preacher by his wife, and your family while you’re on the road, work in a hemorrhaging marketplace, binge drinking, a trapeze act called The Flying Wallendas, the strange tale of a stripper, and the general state of unease in the U.S. Through it all, an underlying circus allegory begins to emerge. Hood explains further in the liner notes:
I never really was all that into the circus as a kid, but I sure was into the Rock Show, which was sort of The Circus for kids of my generation. I went and wanted to join. I’ve been living on the road for much of the last two decades. I get tired and burned out, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The Big To-Do.
Hood and the gang wrote most of the new tracks while on the road, a first for the DBT gang. In addition to the liner notes, Hood penned track-by-track descriptions. His musings on the rocker “This Fucking Job” (download it above), are very thought-provoking. Check those out over at Stereogum.