What is this netherworld that the Drive-By Truckers inhabit?These are guys (and gal) who play unapologetic three-guitar Southern rock that worships Lynyrd Skynyrd while somehow managing to pay more homage to grimy, down-home country than any bar band their rocker image suggests. And while Van Zant and company were busy slighting Neil Young or churning out stadium anthems, the Truckers have been writing a decade's worth of music that captures the real American South better than any quintessential "Southern" band ever could.
There's no better document of this than their fourth LP, the ambitious concept album Southern Rock Opera, which finds the band filtering the Lynyrd Skynyrd legend through the razor sharp wire screen of daily Southern life in the 1970s, emerging with a record that's ultimately just as much about racial turmoil as it is rock 'n roll. But for an album that truly highlights the group's stunning abilities as Southern folk songwriters, Decoration Day is king.
The Truckers tip-toe the fine line between honky-tonk charm and redneck overkill with impressive finesse. Songs like "My Sweet Annette," which tells the story of a factory worker leaving his wife at the altar for her bride of honor, should by all accounts be far, far across that line, yet guitarist Patterson Hood manages to do the exact opposite, dragging us deep into this seemingly alien conflict and even making the listener feel sorry for the wayward groom. Similarly, "Outfit" takes the voice of a father lamenting over a life that could've went beyond painting houses for his old man, as he lists off advice for his own son, including the most brilliant description of the Southern ego I've ever heard: "Don't tell them you're bigger than Jesus / Don't give it away."
The majority of the album follows similar themes of regret, loss, and pain. It's a dark album to be sure, one that gets truly hard to listen to once you let the lyrics and images fully sink in. From the opening track's tale of consensual incest to stories of divorce, suicide, and being stuck in a nameless shithole town, nobody escapes this album unscathed, and you find yourself with plenty of strange bedfellows along the way.
Somewhere into the second half of this album, it dawned on me what this album and the Drive-By Truckers were really about. They aren't a Southern band, nor is this a Southern album. They're an American rock band, pure and simple. Every song on this album could've been placed in any town, city, dirt road, or asphalt slab in the country, and it would've still rang just as true. Don't let the steel guitars and Georgia accents fool you. These aren't Southern stories: these are American stories.
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