Midweek Music Break: Hayes Carll, “Another Like You”

Thanks to all the new(ish) music I’ve been listening to over the last couple years, I’ve found myself a fan of a genre I didn’t even know existed. It’s sort of a loose super-genre, actually: Americana or “roots music,” incorporating elements of bluegrass, folk, country/western, blues, rock… The instrumentation and arrangement lean acoustic-wards, and often feature odd or surprising juxtapositions of sounds and traditions; a band might include banjos and saxophones, for instance, or a fiddle played lying across the seated performer’s legs, like a dulcimer. In other cases it’s just a singer-songwriter and a guitar or honky-tonk piano…

It’s probably easier to describe the opposite of roots music — the stuff which falls outside the Venn diagram. Among the exclusions: techno-electronic dance sounds, bubblegum-pop production values, things metal (as opposed to things wood), sampling and remixing of other artists’ work.

I’d never even heard the name “Hayes Carll” until a couple months ago, when his “Another Like You” topped American Songwriter‘s list of the best 50 songs of 2011. I mean, just look at the top ten to see some of the company he’s keeping: Drive-By Truckers, Wilco, Gillian Welch, Tom Waits…!

You can get a pretty good sense of what to expect (and what not to expect) from him just by glancing at the photo topping this post. His music seems to fall generally into the country/western valley of the roots landscape. On the other hand, his new album straddles categories like they don’t exist. From his Web site:

Fiery rock, twangy country, pensive folk and even a touch of gospel comprise KMAG YOYO‘s sonic palette… Rather than enter the studio with a batch of completed material, Carll and his band picked up where they’d left off onstage — jamming on riffs they’d developed on the road. “I wanted to challenge myself musically,” says Carll, “and see if I could capture that live dynamic. A lot of the songs came with the music first, with the music calling the lyrics.” After completing the instrumental tracks with the band, Carll set to work, his witty wordplay matching the temper of the instrumentation.

That album title, pronounced kay-mag yo-yo, is (says the site) a military acronym (in the same sense, I guess, as snafu). It stands for Kiss my ass, guys. You’re on your own. And its sense is captured in the title track, which tells the story of a disillusioned American soldier in Afghanistan. (The album itself has been well-received. The one review which most stands out in my mind is the one from about a year ago at No Depression.)

So, you think: Carll’s a political songwriter. Well, yes and no. In today’s Midweek Music Break selection, he paints a highly entertaining portrait of a hot romance born of hot disagreement between left and right. (With a surprise cameo at the end, featuring Mr. Left (even more pebbles-in-his-mouth than usual) and Ms. Right themselves — the poster children of political mismatches.)

[Lyrics]