Best Track: "Wide Open"
Lasting Memory: Listen to "We Gotta Have More Soul" or "Wash No Dishes No More" and understand how rarefiedly ridiculous it may seem for me to write the following words: I experienced a true epiphany on July 23, 1991, while listening to the Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper album Bo-Day-Sush!!!.
Sitting in my car, at around two in the afternoon, parked in front of a company-owned townhouse in Germantown, Md., where I was camping out while serving a co-op stint with a government management consulting company at the U.S. Department of Energy satellite headquarters, listening to "Wide Open," I understood, all in a flash, what was so great about rock n' roll and America.
"Wide Open," like a majority of the songs on Bo-Day-Sush!!!, preaches the desirability of -- and sometime the absolute requirement for -- freedom in dancin', drinkin', and hair stylin'. But the real root of Mojo and Skid's message is conveyed in the bridge to "Wide Open," during which Mojo drops into sotto voce to tell listeners
I'm out in Pittsylvania County
On Highway 7-1-8
Middle of a cornfield
Know I'm not too late
There's about thirteen
Thirteen '67 Chevy Malibus
In a circle
In the cornfield with their headlights on
And I can feel it
I can feel it!
And everybody's dancin' in the headlights
Dancin' in the headlights
And off
In the distance
You can hear 'em sing . . .
"I'm feling wide open"
That. Is. It. That is the power of music and the blessing of having been born in the United States. If you need further explanation, I can't help you.
But if you do need some further proof of American Exceptionalism, give "B.B.Q. U.S.A." a click and a spin.
Up Next: Mojo Nixon, Otis, 1990
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