I heard sad news today, with the
announcement that singer/songwriter Guy Clark has died at the age of 74.
Guy was an inspiration to songwriters everywhere for the past forty-plus years
and will be missed.
Thanks for all the great music,
Guy, and for reminding us to “spread your
wings, hold your breath and always trust your cape.”
Disc 867 is….No Depression
Artist: Uncle
Tupelo
Year of Release: 1990
What’s up with the Cover? I call this a “Jones Cola” cover
because it reminds me of the amateur photos featured on the side of a bottle of
Jones Cola. I think it works for a cola bottle, but not as CD cover art. Make
more of an effort, Uncle Tupelo!
How I Came To Know It: My friend Brennan introduced
me to Uncle Tupelo sometime in the last two or three years. I can’t remember what song or songs he sent me, but it
piqued my interest enough for me to dig deeper and listen to their body of
work. I bought “No Depression” not long after.
How It Stacks Up: I have two Uncle Tupelo albums, this one and
the follow up “Still Feel Gone.” I have tentative plans to get their other two
albums (they only released four). For now of the two I have, “No Depression” is
my favourite.
Ratings: 4 stars
Uncle Tupelo’s “No Depression” doesn’t fit into an
easy category. Southern rock crossed with country I suppose, with a healthy
dose of what nowadays you would call ‘indie’ but back in 1990 we would’ve
called “university rock.”
I don’t remember hearing these guys at university,
but they could have easily been on the campus pub jukebox alongside Spirit of
the West and the Crash Test Dummies. Not knowing them then was my loss.
The band’s principal lineup at this time was Jay
Farrar, Mike Heidorn and Jeff Tweedy (the latter would go on to found Wilco to the
widespread acclaim and rousing ‘huzzahs!” of music critics). The album has similarities
to Wilco’s first album “A.M.” (reviewed way back at Disc 84). It has the
same folksy foundations dressed up in rock and roll clothes, as if Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers were playing a backyard barbeque.
Tweedy is rightfully respected as an innovative
songwriter, but Farrar and Heidorn are equally important (Farrar perhaps even more
so). Consequently, these songs are distinct from anything Tweedy did later with
Wilco, but just as interesting. I particularly liked the phrasing of the
vocals, which generally play around the edge of the song’s timing for maximum
emotional impact. This, combined with songs that rarely come back to rest at
their melodic beginnings, give the whole album a restless feel.
The songs are about a gritty and industrial south
and the hard-scrabble characters that inhabit that harsh landscape. As the song
“Whiskey Bottle” notes, the stories
are about “people chasing money and money
getting away.” Most tracks pick up the narrative where dreams are already
broken and people are either picking up the pieces or (more often) too tired to
bother anymore. Even a song with a hopeful title like “Life Worth Livin’” is grim and depressing:
"This song is sung for
anyone that's listening
This song is for the
broken-spirited man
This song is for anyone left
standing
After the strain of a slow sad
end
"It seems everybody wants
what someone else has
And there's sorrow enough for
all, just go in any bar and ask
With a beer in each hand and a
smile in between
All around's a world grown
mean"
Given this backdrop, it is no surprise that of the
only two cover songs on the album, one is from Great Depression (the Carter
Family’s “No Depression”) and the
other is about a desperate outlaw (“John
Hardy”).
This album is a grim portrait of the have-nots.
Where Springsteen finds nobility in the hard done-by, Uncle Tupelo chooses to point
out the ugly truths. The characters that hang out on the back porch on “Screen Door” say about their condition: “down here, where we’re at, everybody is equally
poor.” The man waiting for a train to pass in “Train” takes the chance to review his prospects:
“A quarter after two
Sittin' in my car, watching
Waiting on a train
Ninety-seven flatcars
Loaded down with troop trucks and
tanks
Rolling by.
“I'm twenty-one, and I'm scared
as hell
I quit school, I'm healthy as a
horse
Because of all that I'll be the
first one to die in a war.”
Why would you want to listen to such a bunch of
depressing music? Because it is really
good depressing music. Because it is good to get out of your skin sometime
and be reminded that not everyone is as lucky as you are. Or maybe because you’re
having a down day, and just need a good wallow. That is OK too.
“No Depression” features a stripped down production that
perfectly matches its stark subject matter, and while neither Tweedy nor Farrar
have powerhouse vocals, the angst in their tone is perfectly suited to what
they are creating.
This record doesn’t give you a break, just like its
characters don’t get one. Despite this there is a strange undercurrent of hope,
a pining in the chord structure that if nothing else, reminds us that we’re all
in this thing together. Even though the album’s characters can’t vocalize it, or
shake off the lethargy of their overburdened lives, there it is, lurking in the music.
Ultimately it is the music that hangs in the
background as the one final rebellion against all the injustice in the world. When
I finally pieced that together, I realized that there was some idealism in here
after all. I also realized just how clever this record is to be both that honest
and that subversive at the same time.
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