Steve Earle’s newest song is “Ain’t Nobody’s Daddy Now” from his upcoming album Terraplane (2015). The country blues of “Ain’t Nobody’s Daddy Now” reveals that Earle is going in a blues direction with his backing band the Dukes on the new album.
A few months ago, Earle explained to Rolling Stone that “there’s a lot of sad stuff” on the album because he had recently been going through a divorce from singer-songwriter Allison Moorer. Thus, he notes, “It was a good time to make a blues record.”
In case you are wondering what is a “Terraplane,” the title of the blues album is a nod to blues man Robert Johnson’s song, “Terraplane Blues.” In Johnson’s song, he used the car model Terraplane (a model artistically rendered on the cover of Steve Earle’s album above) as a metaphor for sex. As for Earle’s new song, you may listen to “Ain’t Nobody’s Daddy Now” below.
Terraplane, which features 11 songs all written by Earle, will be available on Tuesday, February 17, 2015. Allison Moorer will be releasing her own new album, Down to Believing, one month later on March 17.
What do you think of “Ain’t Nobody’s Daddy Now”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
The 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways provided insight into some of the legends of alternative country like Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, and Guy Clark. Director Jim Szalapski filled the film with vignettes of the singer-songwriters in their daily lives, providing a fly-on-the wall portrait of them. It is a film for music lovers, without a narrative story, that I found engaging.
Now, to celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of Heartworn Highways, director Wayne Price will be releasing Heartworn Highways Revisited.
The new film takes a look at some current outlaw country singers like Shelly Colvin, Matraca Berg, Bobby Bare Jr., Johnny Fritz, Robert Ellis, Shovels and Rope, Joshua Hedley, John McCauley, and Langhorne Slim. Some old-timers make appearances too, like Guy Clark and David Allan Coe. I am happy to see that rising star singer-songwriter Andrew Combs is in the film too.
Check out the promotional video below.
On the film’s website, Price writes, “With electronic laptop musicians commanding the airwaves, I am excited to bring us back to the ‘old school, with songwriters who only need their instrument and their experience to create music.”
Years ago, I loaned my copy of Heartworn Highways to a friend and never got it back. But I enjoyed the movie, which has some great moments like Van Zandt playing “Waitin’ Round To Die.” I still listen to the soundtrack.
Reportedly, there is no release date yet for the new film, but I am looking forward to the release of Heartworn Highways Revisited.
The New York Times reported on a 51-year-old man who died in the custody of the New York Police Department in January 2014 from apparently hanging himself with the cord from his coat. One may easily imagine the despair one might feel being held in a jail cell. But without a suicide note one can only speculate what led to Edward Soto’s death. Still, the article gave some clues.
Police arrested Soto, who had a couple of previous arrests, for attempted burglary. But family members explained that Soto, who was living with his sister, had been acting erratic since his wife had died in March 2013. Soto and his wife Antoinette had been married seventeen years, and they had seven children. Family members explained that after his wife’s death, Soto talked of hurting himself. They implied that perhaps his latest actions stemmed from his despair.
Allison Moorer’s “The Duel”
It is a tragic story about loss and how difficult it is to recover from losing someone so close, especially a spouse. One of the best songs about this bottomless feeling of sorrow is Allison Moorer‘s “The Duel,” the title track to the singer’s underrated 2004 album.
Moorer wrote “The Duel,” as well as the rest of the songs on the album, with her then husband, Doyle “Butch” Primm. Within a year of the album’s release, the two would divorce, so it is hard not to hear some of the dissolution of their marriage in the dark edges of the album.
The album was a surprise to reviewers who liked Moorer’s earlier music that sounded more country. I understand those first impressions, but the album is deep, requiring repeated listenings to mine its jewels.
When I bought The Duel, I listened to it a few times before putting it away, unimpressed. But many months later, looking for a CD to play in the car, I picked it up again and began listening to it closely, as one does in a car. And I listened again and again, as the CD stayed in my car CD player for months. It was only after hearing the song “The Duel” several times that I eventually really understood what it was about.
In “The Duel,” the song begins with the singer standing in a cemetery as “a newborn atheist.” Eventually, the listener realizes the song is a conversation with God, and the singer is angry: “Even if you do exist / You’re far from almighty.”
By the end of the song, the singer explains that she does not know if she can go on. It is only in the song’s final line that we learn why the singer is so angry.
But one thing I’m sure of, The King of Kings has lost his crown; It’s buried here in marble town, In the god forsaken ground, With my only love.
Few songwriters are brave enough to go to such depths. And it is tragic that anyone like Mr. Soto has to face such unbearable heartbreak. We do not know if he had any conversations with God. But we can feel great sympathy for a man facing such pain alone in a jail cell.
As for Moorer, I do not know to what extent she felt the feelings in the song as her marriage came apart, but part of me is happy that she has never come close to this dark masterpiece again.
What do you think is the most depressing song of all time? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On December 3, 1967, doctors at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa performed the first successful human heart transplant. Fifty-three-year-old Lewis Washkansky, who was dying from chronic heart disease, received his new heart when cardiac surgeon Christiaan N. Barnard led the nine-hour operation.
Washkansky’s new heart came from a 25-year-old woman named Denise Darvall. Darvall had worked as a bank clerk and enjoyed designing clothes.
Darvall had lost her life when she and her family were out for a family drive. At the time, Darvall and her mother were walking back to their car from a bakery when a car struck them. Darvall’s father, George Darvall, who from the family’s car had witnessed both his daughter and wife being killed, approved the heart donation when he thought of how generous and kind his daughter had been.
Although the transplant was successful, Washkansky died eighteen days later from double pneumonia. Unfortunately, drugs designed to keep his body from rejecting the new heart made him more susceptible to illness. During the eighteen days, though, his new heart worked well, giving hope to future heart transplant patients.
Singer Steve Earle has explained that to live life well you only need two things: “an inquisitive mind” and “a fearless heart.” On the third of December in 1967, the inquisitive minds of doctors, researchers, and scientists created a landmark achievement with the help of the fearless hearts of Lewis Washkansky, Denise Darvall, and George Darvall.
So, here is one of my all-time favorite Steve Earle songs, “Fearless Heart,” dedicated to the women and men who made this accomplishment possible and saved many lives.
The song “Fearless Heart” first appeared on Steve Earle’s excellent 1986 debut album, Guitar Town.
Leonardo da Vinci Heart and its Blood Vessels drawing via public domain.
What is your favorite song about hearts? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Steve Earle performed some of the songs of his latest album The Low Highway (2013) live in the KEXP radio station studio in Seattle on a program hosted by Stevie Zoom. In the video, Earle performs “The Low Highway,” “Burnin’ It Down,” “Invisible,” and “Remember Me.”
The final song, “Remember Me,” is a touching song Earle wrote to his newest child as Earle contemplates his own advanced age and the probability he will not be around for long. The segment was recorded on April 18, 2013.
What is your favorite song in the video? Leave your two cents in the comments.
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Police arrested Soto, who had a couple of previous arrests, for attempted burglary. But family members explained that Soto, who was living with his sister, had been acting erratic since his wife had died in March 2013. Soto and his wife Antoinette had been married seventeen years, and they had seven children. Family members explained that after his wife’s death, Soto talked of hurting himself. They implied that perhaps his latest actions stemmed from his despair.
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