I’m bound to make my regular readers happy with this theme week, which will actually span two weeks and ten albums. I know my sister considers Lyle Lovett her ‘desert island’ artist (though where we’d get batteries for the CD player on this island, I don’t know — I love that moment in Season One of Lost where Hurley’s discman finally runs out on him).
I won’t go so far as to call Lovett my own desert island artist, but he’s definitely in the running. His combination of rootsy instrumentation, jazz flourishes and literate, humorous lyrics — not to mention that world-class voice — puts him in a league of his own. He doesn’t make it to my island because there’s a sameness in his work over the past 20+ years, but if you have to settle on a sound, he couldn’t have picked a better one.
Lovett is known primarily as a country artist (every one of his albums has placed higher on the country charts than the main one) but that’s not a box he fits in comfortably. Hearing Lovett’s music, you’re tempted to say he’s “not really country” but I think it’s more accurate to say he broadens the definition of what country can be.
His self-titled debut album is a good example. It’s the most straight-forward country album he’s released — songs such as ‘Country Man,’ ‘God Will,’ ‘This Old Porch’ and ‘Farther Down the Line’ are straight out of the Nashville songbook — and yet nestled toward the end is today’s track, ‘An Acceptable Level of Ecstasy (The Wedding Song),’ which explodes the whole thing in a fusion of jazz and gospel that signals the direction this man’s career would take.
I love the simple pleasures of this first album — the way I love a first film or first novel by a future great. But today’s song turns a low-key affair into a major statement. I can only imagine the reaction country fans must have had when they hit this song at the end of the odd-looking newcomer’s album back in 1986.
While the band was playing something like Moon River or Somewhere Over The Rainbow
And I was chasing the black man with the champagne
And I was chasing the black girl with the Oysters Rockefeller
And it was a highbrow occasion
For no special reason
And nobody knew
Nobody knew
That the flowers were furnished by the funeral parlor
And the whole thing was paid for by the funeral director
Who poisoned the saxophone section
And if you ain’t the big daddy
You ain’t nobody
If you ain’t the big daddy
You ain’t nobody
Red and yellow, black and tan
But white that’s the color of the big boss man
It was a twenty-piece orchestra at the Warwick Hotel
With some fat man from the opera who tried to sing Misty
And it was black men and black boys in white ties and tails
And mascara and rouge and fake fingernails
If you ain’t the big daddy
You ain’t nobody
If you ain’t the big daddy
You ain’t nobody
Red and yellow, black and tan
But white that’s the color of the big boss man
They had them everywhere man
They had one on every foot and every hand
And they was all saying yes sir
And right away ma’am
And they was picking up plates
And they was pouring wine
And they was checking umbrellas
And making shoes shine
And they was handing out towels in the washroom
For a quarter
And it was an acceptable level of ecstasy
As far as everyone could see
But nobody knew
That the flowers were furnished by the funeral parlor
And the whole thing was paid for by the funeral director
Who poisoned the saxophone section
And if you ain’t the big daddy
You ain’t nobody
If you ain’t the big daddy
You ain’t nobody
Red and yellow, black and tan
But white that’s the color of the big boss man
Meet Me In Montauk 
I think I may have just actually – literally – squealed when this window opened and Lyle’s image greeted me. Yes, this regular reader is quite pleased with your theme week. Especially if it gives a glimpse to some of your other regular readers as to just why I so adore this man and his music.
The only thing I’d take slight issue with in what you wrote this morning is that any of his songs is “straight out of the Nashville songbook.” His lyrics and his delivery make each song uniquely his own, always deepening what country music can be. So I’d be willing to bet that a few of the cuts off the first album surprised – I would hope in a positive way – the traditional country music fan.
I know today’s song is one of Dana’s favorites, and I love it, too, though this would likely be the album that got the least play on my desert island.
This album has grown on me quite a lot since I first got it, I think because I’ve come around on country music in general. It’s chock full of great songs.
Well, I’m certainly thrilled to see this theme week as well. Is it possible that you have gone all this time without featuring a Lovett song?
This is, indeed, amongst my favorites of his. It doesn’t stretch country, as it is NOT country. It is pure jazz and blues, and foreshadows the great jazz and blues work to come on Pontiac and Large Band. The “hit” off of this album, “You Can’t Resist It” might stand as a better example of the expansion of country into the pop country realm we see today featured in artists such as the Dixie Chicks and Taylor Swift.
The rest of the album is nice enough, but as I have not warmed so much to country, I generally leave this album behind (save this excellent SOTD) and move on to the far better Pontiac.
Actually, I might play this one a lot on my desert island.
🙂 I think blues and jazz are clear cousins of country, so I’m not sure how Dana can make such an arbitrary distinction. Of course, it’s rare for an artist to juxtapose the “two-step” with “Oysters Rockefeller,” but that’s exactly what makes Lovett so special.
Blues is certainly a cousin of country, but I would argue that jazz is not necessarily so, particularly the kind of jazz (swing) used by Lovett here and on subsequent great songs off Pontiac and Large Band.
Country Man is my favorite Lyle Lovett song. Right up there with That’s Correct (You’re Not From The Southwest).