A Turn for the Turn

Album: Steve Earle and the Dukes, The Hard Way, 1990

Best Track: "Regular Guy"

Lasting Memory: For reasons I don't even know, I have an extremely vivid memory of driving through the frigid predawn of Blacksburg, Va., during the winter of 1996 while listening to "Billy Austin," which is the last song on side 1 of The Hard Way. The recollection isn't unpleasant, but it is freighted for several reasons.

First, listening to the song itself, which runs

My name is Billy Austin
I'm Twenty-Nine years old
I was born in Oklahoma
Quarter Cherokee I'm told

Don't remember Oklahoma
Been so long since I left home
Seems like I've always been in prison
Like I've always been alone

Didn't mean to hurt nobody
Never thought I'd cross that line
I held up a filling station
Like I'd done a hundred times

The kid done like I told him
He lay face down on the floor
Guess I'll never know what made me
Turn and walk back through that door

The shot rang out like thunder
My ears rang like a bell
No one came runnin'
So I called the cops myself

Took their time to get there
And I guess I could'a run
I knew I should be feeling something
But I never shed tear one

I didn't even make the papers
'Cause I only killed one man
But my trial was over quickly
And then the long hard wait began

Court-appointed lawyer
Couldn't look me in the eye
He just stood up and closed his briefcase
When they sentenced me to die

Now my waitin's over
As the final hour drags by
I ain't about to tell you
That I don't deserve to die

But there's twenty-seven men here
Mostly black, brown and poor
Most of 'em are guilty
Who are you to say for sure?

So when the preacher comes to get me
And they shave off all my hair
Could you take that long walk with me
Knowing hell is waitin' there

Could you pull that switch yourself sir
With a sure and steady hand
Could you still tell youself
That you're better than I am

My name is Billy Austin
I'm twenty-nine years old
I was born in Oklahoma
Quarter Cherokee I'm told

is just about the worst way to start a day. I was on my way to my graduate assistant sinecure, though, which is a great way to spend a day. I could only be bummed by the true story of young Mr. Austin. I could never hope to truly understand the man's reality.

Second, as events unfolded, the song set the sloping-towards-annoying-and-irrelevant stage for the long second act of Steve Earle's career.

Third, "Billy Austin" nicely states a lot of my problems with the death penalty, illustrating how the sentence is unfairly meted and unsatisfying. But it is also a tough listen. The medium absolutely kills the message. This is a huge problem for most message songs.

"Billy Austin," in short, was and is a triple Mr. Yuk sticker -- unrelatable, offputting, and damn-near unlistenable.

I'm not sure why Earle decided to start filling his life and his albums with death obsession and heavy-handed message, but I suspect his ridiculously over-the-top heorin and cocaine adictions bear some of the blame. I mean, I'm all for inebriation followed by sobriety and all against capital punishment, but I seriously wish Earle had erred on the side of dependency rather than advocacy.

He should have heeded the words of his own "Regular Guy":

I'm just a regular guy
Never get rich, but I always get by
I got me a wife and a couple a kids
I done pretty much like my daddy did

He always did the best that he could
Took care of mama and us pretty good
He never got rich but he never did try
He was just a regular guy

Well the world goes around
I can't stop it
So I'll sit back and watch the sun go down
If it comes back up then this day's a good 'un
You know I wouldn't be that surprised

I'm just a regular guy
And I'll work until the day that I die
I'm too young to quit too old to hire
These days a man can't afford to retire

Didn't vote for nobody last time
Cause they wasn't worth a trickle down dime
But one man's promise is another man's lie
And I'm just a regular guy

If he had taken that message to heart, then he could have kept rocking and stopped talking. But instead of cranking out songs like Hard Way's "Promise You Anything " when he got out of court-ordered rehab, he churned out multiple variations of "Esmerelda's Hollywood." And I'm not entirely sure what to think of either of those particular songs, because Earle cowrote both with Maria McKee but sang one of these dirty love in the afternoon anthems with his sister Stacey (see the above sticker).

The worst thing I can charge Earle with, though, is that he made me an apostate to my own musical tastes inasmuch as I own five of his clean and sober CDs and enjoy listening to them from time to time. I guess I just can't quit Earle.

Up Next: Edie Brickell and New Bohemians, Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars, 1998

Note from Management: I'm cutting the Acquired section because it didn't seem to add much. I'll mention the provenance of albums when it's relevant or interesting, but not as a matter of course. Of course.