This is a clever little album – country enough for fans of traditional American country, farm boys singing about moonshine – but with several twists: a bloke who sounds like Johnny Cash, some nice solos and some darkly witty lyrics in the vein of the Broken Family Band.
Opener “For the West” is a slick tune. “It’s a wonderful day for a ride, got the wagon hitched on a pole outside,” begin the homespun lyrics, and there are both guitar and fiddle solos.
Mick takes the vocals for the next track, “That Sweet Plaintalking Country Girl”, and he sounds more like Johnny Cash than Johnny Cash. So much so that I checked it wasn’t a song Mr Cash recorded many years ago. Nope.
The topic is less folksy than the opener. “I was at a little country bar playing in a third rate cowboy band,” sings the narrator, though it ends: “There’s a story going round that now she’s lonesome too / And once again my hopes are raised,” complete with plaintive fiddle.
“Ghosts of the Old West” has the album’s best line. The plot: boy meets girl, girl’s dad hates boy, to violent effect. “So I gave her a little black kitten, but that made her father mad / And in a fit of jealousy, he shot that kitten dead.” Sincere as the music is, some tongues are firmly in cheek.
By now you’re hooked; the old fashioned playing has become acceptable. What’s to come? It is country, so tragedy, obviously: “I loaded my rifle, in my anger everything was red / Saw a bald head standing by a window, and I shot that bastard dead / But his brother had come for a visit, that was him lying on the ground.” Oops. Still, never shoot a kitten.
“In Irons from Limerick City” is a straighter tale, a couple who move – not voluntarily – from Limerick to New South Wales. Not a Buckley’s, as they say in Marton.
“The Ghosts of the Old West” is more Johnny Cash, remembering the Wild West. I’ve actually been to Lincoln Jail (scene of Billy the Kid’s last escape), so when Coates sings: “The ghosts of the old west ride, good or otherwise / There’s bullet holes in the stairs where Bell the deputy dies / In the Lincoln County Jail / I stared down from that window pane / I see Pecos Bob look up when Kid Antrim called his name,” I can really picture the scene.
“The Reverend Mr Black” is an old Leiber and Stoller song with Johnny Cash again on the vocals.
In between the cowboy songs and shootouts there are songs with a message. “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” is about Hayes, one of the six Marines who raised the US flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima and a member of the First Nations. “Anymore” is gloriously up to date: “No more Nicaraguas, no more Vietnams…” Oops.
An excellent album for anyone who likes songs that tell stories. Don’t be put off by the old country sound.
JMC
