Drive By Truckers - Go-Go Boots
- Written by Ben Dufton
Drive By Truckers return to the shelves of our local record stores with something between (according to the all encompassing internet) their ninth and twelfth album (band co-founder Patterson Hood counts it as their eleventh, by the way). Recorded separately during the same sessions as predecessor The Big To Do, Go-Go Boots dives into the “waters of country/soul and that mystical intersection between to two dominate poles of our shared musical heritage”, again according to Hood.
The characters Drive By Truckers are oft known for creating are present and correct - there’s the murderous Reverend of ‘Go-Go Boots’ and ‘The Fireplace Poker’, trying to get rid of his wife through some un-godly means to make some room for his mistress (the two songs are effectively parts one and two of the same story – think Miss Marple in Mississippi, but with a better ending). ‘Used To Be A Cop’ tells the tale of, well, a former cop who couldn’t quite hack the lifestyle he chose.
‘The Thanksgiving Filter’ relays the everyman feeling you get during the holidays, of however much you love your family there is such thing as too much time with them, by noticing all the familial quirks of “My Aunt's praising Palin and my niece loves Obama / My uncle came to dinner wearing his pajamas” and the fact that “Papa's building something and has since history / But what he's building is still a mystery / It's big and it's twisting and shaped convoluted / It don't have a function but you better salute it”.
Go-Go Boots is a clever album, full of dark and dirt as well as light and laughter. Every listen brings to attention a new line that will radically alter whatever initial thoughts you had about the corresponding song. It’s good, old-fashioned country storytelling to good, old-fashioned country music.