My Top Ten Jason Isbell Songs
And my favorite lyric within
In a few weeks, my family will be moving to Starkville, MS, as I’m appointed Senior Pastor of Starkville First United Methodist Church. That is only pertinent for this fact: Starkville is about 2 and a half hours away from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. And that matters because every year, Jason Isbell hosts a festival called Shoalsfest featuring all kinds of music. This year, Jason will be playing with his former band, the acclaimed southern rock band the Drive by Truckers, and they will be playing all the way through their classic album, Decoration Day.
I told my wife this very, very important information. Her response was, “Haven’t you seen him play like three times?” I said, “Yes, but not with Truckers, playing through Decoration Day!” She was unpersuaded.
Jason Isbell, for many of us middle-aged southern white guys, is our “guy.” I love many artists, primarily in the Americana genre, Turnpike Troubadours, Tyler Childers, Stugil Simpson (aka Johnny Blue Skies), and an amazing bluegrass band called Nickel Creek. But Isbell is my guy. He’s an amazing guitar player. Some of his solos are legendary. Great vocalist, with so much meaning in his voice. But, for my money, and for many others, he is among the greatest, if not the greatest, living songwriter. His songs are poetry. They tell stories. Theology. Meaning. He, to me, has explained the best of what it means to be a Southerner.
I truly found his music during COVID. I had heard of him before, but in that season, so many days, I would go outside, sit in my hammock, and just listen over and over to his lyrics. They were balm to my soul. They named things I couldn’t put my finger on. I truly fell in love with his music, especially his lyrics. I’ve seen at the Ryman in Nashville, in Jackson, MS, and in Baton Rouge with Turnpike. One of the highlights of my life was when he replied to one of my tweets. What a day!
So, I wanted to share with you my Top Ten favorite songs of his. A couple of things. This is totally subjective. And these are songs whose lyrics mean something special to me. I’m not even saying these are my favorite songs. These are the ones that mean something to me. Also, I feel really, really bad about this list. I started out with forty-four songs that I considered, going from his days in the Drive by Truckers to his new solo acoustic album. I widdled, widdled it down until I got to my top ten, with five honorable mentions. So, without further ado, here is my Top Ten, along with my favorite lyrics.
Honorable Mentions
Cover Me Up
Well, let’s just get this out of the way. I know. I know. I understand. I’m wrong. But, to me, Andy Stoddard, there is another love song of his that is just slightly better. Hey, I don’t feel good about this either.
Favorite Lyrics
Put your faith to the test when I tore off your dress
In Richmond on high
I sobered up, I swore off that stuff
Forever this time
White Beretta
Jason’s not afraid to sing about hard things. This one has a line about someone struggling with their faith that really resonated with me.
Favorite Lyrics
I was raised in the church
I was washed in the blood
and we all were saved before we even left home
If his love is unconditional
why do I feel so miserable
why are you digging your nails in the styrofoam
Songs She Sang in the Shower
A song about domestic abuse, from a female perspective. Maybe his most cutting line.
Favorite Lyrics
On a lark, on a whim
I said, "There's two kinds of men in this world and you're neither of them"
And his fist cut the smoke
I had an eighth of a second to wonder if he got the joke
Something More than Free
Coming from a family of blue-collar workers, I always find that this song reminds me of the lessons about work my dad taught me.
Favorite Lyrics
And the day will come when I'll find a reason
And somebody proud to love a man like me
My back is numb, my hands are freezing
What I'm working for is something more than free
Lonely Love
This is a song that I love, but as a preacher, the title doesn’t sit well with me. But Isbell pushes you to feel some real things. Hearbreaking song.
Favorite Lyrics
Stop me if you've heard this one before:
A man walks into a bar and leaves before his ashes hit the floor
Stop me if I ever get that far
The sun's a desperate star that burns like every single one before
Now, we get to the action.
Number 10
King of Oklahoma
If you are unaware by now, he’s not exactly singing happy songs. This is about opioid addiction and the way that it destroys families and lives. It paints a realistic picture of what is happening all across the South and our rural areas.
Favorite Lyrics
She used to wake me up with coffee every morning
And I'd hear her homemade house shoes slide across the floor
She used to make me feel like the king of Oklahoma
But nothing makes me feel like much of nothing anymore
Number Nine
Elphant
Really upbeat, positive song about dying from cancer. It names the pain, hurt, and hopelessness you feel when you see someone you love dying a terrible death, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Favorite Lyrics
I've buried her a thousand times
Giving up my place in line
But I don't give a damn about that now
There's one thing that's real clear to me:
No one dies with dignity
We just try to ignore the elephant somehow
We just try to ignore the elephant somehow
We just try to ignore the elephant somehow
Number Eight
Speed Trap Town
For me, this song means so much. I drove into our county seat town, all the time, and it was a speed trap town. First ticket I ever got was on the way to church, Easthaven Baptist Church, in Brookhaven, MS, doing 44 in a 40. The pain of realizing your home is no longer your home hits all of us who leave home.
Favorite Lyrics
Well, it’s a Thursday night but theres a high school game
Sneak a bottle up the bleachers and forget my name
These 5A bastards run a shallow cross
It’s a boys last dream and a man’s first loss
And it never did occur to me to leave ‘til tonight
There’s no one left to ask if I’m alright
I’ll sleep until I’m straight enough to drive, then decide
If there’s anything that can’t be left behind
Number Seven
24 Frames
To me, this is his best theological song. So many times in my life, I have had my plans of what will happen in life, in church, in our family. I knew what I wanted to happen, and what I wanted everyone to see and understand. And it’s like God set it all on fire, to remind me that He is still God. Not me.
Favorite Lyrics
You thought God was an architect, now you know
He's something like a pipe bomb ready to blow
And everything you built it's all for show, goes up in flames
In 24 frames
Number Six
If We Were Vampires
To me, this is THE love song. I love the way he sings about knowing that, as powerful as love is, even the love of this earth is temporary. As much as I love my wife with all that I am, at some point, one of us will be without the other. My joke is that she cannot die first. I have to. I cannot imagine my life without her, and with her, I would die soon, out of sheer loneliness. This song captures the depth of that love.
Favorite Lyrics
If we were vampires and death was a joke
We'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke
Laugh at all the lovers and their plans
I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand
Maybe time running out is a gift
I'll work hard 'til the end of my shift
And give you every second I can find
And hope it isn't me who's left behind
Number Five
Decoration Day
Now this is the Southern Gothic story. This is straight out of Faulkner. It is a story of generational hate and feuds that, in the end, don’t just destroy the life of the person you hate, but also destroy your life as well. Unforgiveness kills us all. Hate is too heavy a burden to carry, as Dr. King taught us.
Favorite Lyrics
It’s Decoration Day
And I’ve a mind to go spit on his grave
If I was a Hill I’d have put him away
And I’d fight till the last Lawson’s last living day
I’d fight till the last Lawson’s last living day
I’d fight till the last Lawson’s last living day
Number Four
White Man’s World
The song that haunts me. I’ve lived these lyrics. I know that shame that comes from wishing you had courage when you were younger. That shame can mark you, if you allow and cause you to actually live out the courage of your convictions. Special bonus: this version also features Chris Thile from Nickel Creek on mandolin.
Favorite Lyrics
I'm a white man looking in a black man's eyes
Wishing I'd never been one of the guys
Who pretended not to hear another white man's joke
Oh, the times ain't forgotten
Number Three
Cast Iron Skillet
I love this song so much. It takes so many of those southern phrases we know (don’t walk where you can’t see your feet, etc) and tells stories about how lives and people change. The second lyric about a white woman who falls in love with an African American man and then is disowned, hits so hard - it’s hard to go through life without your daddy by your side.
Jason writes about race in such a very powerful and honest way that always speaks to me.
Favorite Lyrics
Jamie found a boyfriend
With smiling eyes and dark skin
And her daddy never spoke another word to her again
The old man at the Quickstop
Lying to the county cops
And laughing like his soul was without sin
How did he get so low?
Seems like just a week ago
She was sitting on your shoulders watching fireworks in the sky
He treats her like a queen
But you don’t know ‘cause you ain’t seen
It’s hard to go through life without your daddy by your side
Number Two
Children of Children
Ok, for me, this song, more so than anything else he has written, names the guilt and pain I’ve felt as a survivor of childhood tragedy. For so many years, I blamed myself for my mother’s murder. She died protecting me. If I had not been born, she would still be alive. I have felt these lyrics in my life. I have felt this pain. I know these words, and this song has helped me process my grief.
Favorite Lyrics
I was riding on my mother's hip
She was shorter than the corn
All the years I took from her
Just by being born.
Number One
Outfit
What every southern father has said to their son, or had their father say to them. This song perfectly captures how so many of us want our sons to live: with authenticity, working hard, loving hard, and being proud of themselves and their family. To me, and to many, this song nails what we would all want to be as Southern men.
And I actually quoted lyrics from this song, not on purpose, to my son when he started college. They just came out!
Favorite Lyrics
Don't call what you're wearing an outfit, don't ever say your car is broke
Don't sing with a fake British accent, don't act like your family's a joke
Have fun, but stay clear of the needle, call home on your sister's birthday
Don't tell them you're bigger than Jesus, don't give it away