Steve Earle Archives - Page 8 of 9

I Ain’t Never Seen Nothin’ Like a Galway Girl

As regular readers of Chimesfreedom know, I am a Steve Earle fan. So you might imagine my delight a few years ago while visiting a shop in Galway on my first trip to Ireland, on the radio I heard Steve Earle’s “Galway Girl” from Transcendental Blues (2000), one of my favorite CDs. In this day and age of worldwide communications and travel, it should not be surprising that an artist is popular around the world. And Earle often has talked about his love of the country and Galway, in particular, explaining that he finds “poetry in the rocks of Ireland.” Still, hearing the familiar song contributed to making the island inhabited by some of my ancestors seem even more like home.

In the performance above, Earle is joined by Sharon Shannon, a fiddle and button accordion player who recorded the song with Earle on her own CD, Diamond Mountain Sessions (2001). In the video above, she plays the accordion, and she plays with a number of artists in different versions including the below version with Mundy. Her recording with Mundy became a national hit, and you can see why this rousing version is so popular.

Mundy and others have performed the song in the Irish Gaelic language. I found one version without much description, so here are “Kevin Mundy and Keith” (neither apparently related to the Mundy from the above video) performing “Cailín na Gaillimhe.”

With Earle’s song becoming an Irish classic, it shows that a great song is not limited by borders. Have a safe and happy St. Patrick’s Day.

What is your favorite Irish tune? Leave your two cents in the comments.

Nanci Griffith’s Superstars on Letterman: “Desperados Waiting for a Train”

I woke up this morning, and none of the news was good: Steve Earle’s “Jerusalem” (Song of the Day)

Steve Earle Covers Justin Townes Earle’s “Harlem River Blues”

You’ll Miss The Time You Waste

Steve Earle’s “Ghosts of West Virgina” (album review)

Once Upon a Time in a Far Off Land (Steve Earle’s “Nothing But a Child”)

(Some Related Chimesfreedom Posts)

Buy from Amazon

The “Other” Wrecking Ball: Emmylou Harris

In the last few weeks, many have focused on Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Wrecking Ball. All of the news reminds me that there was already a great album with same name from when Emmylou Harris released her Wrecking Ball in 1995. The Daniel Lanois production and the atmospheric sound of the album created a career-changing sound for Harris. Allmusic argued that the album might have been the culmination of all of Harris’s work up until then, calling it “a leftfield masterpiece, the most wide-ranging, innovative, and daring record in a career built on such notions.” I fell in love with the album immediately, and seeing Harris perform the songs in New Orleans sealed it for me. Just consider three great songs from that CD.

First, the opening song on the album sets the stage for the Lanois production touch with one of his songs, “Where Will I Be.” The question asked in the song — “Oh where oh where will I be. . . when that trumpets sounds” — reflects a theme running through many songs on the album of trying to find one’s place in the world and the universe, whether it be with love, family, or something spiritual.

Later on the album, Harris showed her great taste in music by covering one of Steve Earle’s most heartbreaking songs, “Goodbye” from his Train A Comin’ (1995) album. I love Earle’s version but Harris is the only cover I have heard that captures the aching in the song. On the album, Earle loaned his guitar playing to aid Harris’s voice in creating a great version of the song with one of the greatest lines of all time about a past love, “I can’t remember if we said goodbye.”

Finally, the album also features her cover of Bob Dylan’s religious masterpiece, “Every Grain of Sand” from his Shot of Love (1981) album. In 2003, Harris performed the song at Johnny Cash’s funeral with Sheryl Crow. This video is from San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in 2010. Even though the camera is a little shaky, it captures Harris in fine form with Buddy Miller helping out on guitar (on the CD, Steve Earle played guitar on this song too).

And those are only three songs on Wrecking Ball, which in addition to Steve Earle, included guest appearances by Lucinda Williams and Neil Young with songs by those two artists as well as a beautiful cover of Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl.” I will not dare to say which Wrecking Ball album is the best, but there is certainly room on you iPod for both of these Wrecking Balls.

The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris

Me and the Eagle

Why “GUY”? (Steve Earle album review)

Dwight, Lucinda, and Steve: “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)”

Emmylou Harris Covers Steve Earle’s “The Pilgrim”

Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell On “The Traveling Kind”

(Some Related Chimesfreedom Posts)

Buy from Amazon

(Daylight Savings) Time Has Come Today

Happy Daylight Savings Time! As you set your clocks an hour ahead, you might consider the history of the day as well as an appropriate song. On February 9, 1942, a law passed by Congress pushed ahead all U.S. clocks by one hour for the upcoming years. President Franklin Roosevelt advocated the year-round Daylight Savings Time, which was called “war time,” as a way to save fuel for the Allied war efforts. The law remained in effect until September 30, 1945 when Congress repealed it. A similar national law that turned back the clocks for seven months of the year had been in effect during World War I. But after both World War I and after World War II, the wars’ ends meant that states could once again regulate their own standard times.

Eventually, in 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act imposing a uniform standard for states to follow Daylight Savings Time, although allowing state legislatures to vote for an exemption. In the 1970s and 1980s Congress made additional changes to the law, including setting the time and date for when Daylight Savings Time begins. A 2005 law extended the Daylight Savings Time ending date from October to November, so now Daylight Savings Time begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March and ends at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of November.

An appropriate song for Daylight Savings Time is the 1967 release “Time Has Come Today” by the Chambers Brothers.

The song has been covered by a number of people, including Joan Jett, the Ramones, and Steve Earle (with Sheryl Crow). The song seems to be loved by some great film directors. Hal Ashby used it in a key scene in Coming Home (1978); Brian De Palma used it in Casualties of War (1989); Oliver Stone used it in The Doors (1991); and Spike Lee used it in Crooklyn (1991). The song appears in several other films too, including Remember the Titans (2000), The Zodiac (2006) and many others according to Wikipedia.

In 2012, though, the use of the song was back in the news. Lester Chambers, the lead singer of the Chambers Brothers reached out to fans because he and the band often did not receive royalties for the use of their songs. Chambers explained that he is living on $1,200 a month and relying upon money from a musician’s charity when all he wants is what is rightly his. The campaign has attracted the support of Yoko Ono and others.

The law can change the clock, but can it turn back time to give justice to Lester Chambers? March 2013 Update: Through help from Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, Reddit, Kickstarter and attention through various media outlets, Lester Chambers — who had faced homelessness and health issues — began doing better and once again making music. He survived when someone attacked him during a performance in 2013 after he dedicated a song to Trayvon Martin. In 2014, Chambers was playing with Lester Chambers and the Mud Stompers. As of 2023, he continues to perform and was performing with Moonalice.

What do you think if Daylight Savings Time? What do you think of Lester Chambers’s campaign? Leave your two cents in the comments.

Buy from Amazon

Nanci Griffith’s Superstars on Letterman: “Desperados Waiting for a Train”

I woke up this morning, and none of the news was good: Steve Earle’s “Jerusalem” (Song of the Day)

Steve Earle Covers Justin Townes Earle’s “Harlem River Blues”

You’ll Miss The Time You Waste

Steve Earle’s “Ghosts of West Virgina” (album review)

Once Upon a Time in a Far Off Land (Steve Earle’s “Nothing But a Child”)

(Some Related Chimesfreedom Posts)

Valentine’s Day: Steve Earle and the Fairfield Four

There are many great love songs. But I am not sure there is a better one specifically about Valentine’s Day than Steve Earle’s song, “Valentine’s Day” from his 1996 album, I Feel Alright.

In this live version of the song below, Earle has The Fairfield Four providing backing vocals. And I’m not sure anyone has ever made a better, or simpler, video of a song.

The beauty of the song is how it turns the cliches around, reminding us that the things we associate with Valentine’s Day are things that really do not have much to do with love. The singer tells how he forgot about the holiday so does not have a card, flowers, diamonds or gold to give.

Finally, the singer offers an IOU and to make it all up to the person, concluding, “Until then I hope my heart will do.”

For a bonus, here is a video of Earle singing the song solo live.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Steve Earle Performs “Invisible” on David Letterman and Announces Box Set

Nanci Griffith’s Superstars on Letterman: “Desperados Waiting for a Train”

I woke up this morning, and none of the news was good: Steve Earle’s “Jerusalem” (Song of the Day)

Steve Earle Covers Justin Townes Earle’s “Harlem River Blues”

You’ll Miss The Time You Waste

Steve Earle’s “Ghosts of West Virgina” (album review)

(Some Related Chimesfreedom Posts)

Devil’s Right Hand Arrest in New York City

Recently, a woman from Tennessee was arrested for carrying a licensed gun in New York City. The case has sparked some uproar because of the unusual facts. The woman, Meredith Graves, apparently was carrying a gun licensed in her home state of Tennessee while visiting the 9/11 Memorial in New York. After seeing a “No Guns” sign, Ms. Graves asked police where she could check her gun. Subsequently, she was arrested under a New York law prohibiting people from carrying a loaded gun, even if the gun is licensed in another state.

The case is a perfect illustration of the old adage, “Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse.” Generally, that is true in the law, as one may understand that someone should not be able to commit robbery and then say they did not know it was against the law. Only very rarely can ignorance of the law rise to a Due Process problem when someone is punished for violating a law they did not know existed. Under this case, a court would probably hold that when someone travels to another state with a gun, it is not unfair to require them to check the local laws on whether they can pack heat.

Here, Ms. Graves had every intent to comply with the law and was arrested for violating a New York law she did not know existed. A prosecutor sought a felony conviction, which could result in a sentence of up to 3 1/2 years. This case seems like a perfect one for a prosecutor to use discretion to avoid a conviction of someone who did not wish to cause any harm and who tried to comply with the law — even if she could have done things a little better. My guess is that the prosecutor is using the case to help publicize the New York law to tell tourists to leave their guns at home.

There are a number of slang terms for guns, and one of the coolest is “the Devil’s right hand,” used in the song of the same name written by Steve Earle from his album, Copperhead Road (1988). The song begins with the singer’s first encounter with what his mama called “the Devil’s right hand,” illustrating a fascination that ends up with the singer using a gun to kill another man during a fight in the card game. Like Ms. Graves, the singer pleads not guilty and blames it all on “the Devil’s right hand.” Here is a young Steve Earle performing the song.

It is somewhat surprising that the song has not been covered more often by rock groups, considering the song’s catchy music and edgy lyrics. Perhaps the best cover is by The Highwaymen. That version makes good use of all of the members of the group: Johnny Cash, Waylong Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson.

Two of the members of that group — Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash — recorded their own solo versions too. Here is the group version. So listen to the song one more time as a reminder to check those gun laws when you travel.