Come a Thousand Miles From a Guitar Town

Album: Steve Earle, Guitar Town, 1986

Acquired: When we got to Baton Rouge around the midpoint of our tour of the hometowns of state-chartered bank regulatory board chairmen (they were all men, as I recall), Clair and I visited with a college friend of her's who was on faculty at LSU. That guy, Scott, was kind enough to tape this album for me because we had enthused about how good Steve Earle was.

Best Track: "Goodbye's All We've Got Left," just barely edging out the title track

Lasting Memory: During the couple of months I spent working construction during my, uh, interesting year between undergrad and graduate school, I spent 12 to 14 hours a day working only with proudly self-identified rednecks who for the most part had never traveled outside of southwest Virginia. They liked Steve Earle, too. Music is the great uniter.

And now for the non sequitir.

Guitar Town is Earle's major-label debut. Like a good first album should, it provides glimpses into what the artist will be up to should his or her career progress past that first hard-won artistic milestone (to puree a metaphor). The album opens with the rockabilly anthem "Guitar Town," and then switches immediately into the blue collar suburban weeper "Goodbye's All We've Got Left." Here are the lyrics, which seem a little flat on the screen, but click the link and you'll hear what I mean when I say the song is just devastating:

I could tell it when I woke up this mornin'
'Cause I can smell it when a heartache's comin'
Not that I'm in such a hurry to lose you
I'd call you up but there's nothin' that I can do
Talkin' won't do any good anyway
'Cause goodbye's all we've got left to say

I don't think that it'll get any better
So maybe you could just write me a letter
And I could open it up when I'm stronger
Another ten or twelve years, maybe longer
Guess I just don't feel much like bad news today
Goodbye's all we've got left to say

Don't try to call me 'cause I'm takin' my phone out
'Cause if it rings, I'll know what it's about
And don't you worry 'bout me 'cause I'm alright
Maybe you'll run into me somewhere, some night
And if you do just keep goin' your way
Goodbye's all we've got left to say

There are also class politics songs on Guitar Town, like "Good Ol' Boy (Getting Tough)," and love-so-much-it's-gonna-hurt-somebody-and- I-don't-care-who songs, like "Fearless Heart."

So Earle set his stage, and, as I'll write more about in my next few irregularly scheduled posts, he (rock pun alert!) absolutely strutted and fretted his hours upon it. Until the heorin caught up with him.

Up Next: Steve Earle & the Dukes, Exit 0, 1987