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Brad Paisley – This is Country Music

Country music is the only genre I can think of that people are embarrassed to admit liking. Not all people, of course… the U.S. is full of proud country music fans unafraid to fly that flag.

But in the circles I travel in, liking country music is akin to wearing a mullet or attending a monster truck rally. It’s more than just uncool… it’s a social and political betrayal of sorts.

Recently my sister posted a Facebook status saying she is “officially in love” with Blake Shelton (whom she has discovered through his TV show, ‘The Voice’) but she prefaced that comment with “I’ve never been a big country music fan,” a disclaimer I doubt she would have provided had he been an alt-rock musician.

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Song of the Day #1,053: ‘Suzanne’ – Randy Newman

I’m starting up week two of my Randy Newman theme, and for those of you joining us at the midway point, this is where I showcase Newman’s dark side. I spent last week on the more sensitive and romantic songs, demonstrating exactly how effective the man is at playing it straight. But now comes the fun stuff.

Representing Randy Newman’s sophomore album, 12 Songs in week one was ‘Rosemary,’ a jaunty serenade. Today’s featured track takes another woman’s name as its title but creates a very different mood.

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Song of the Day #1,052: ‘Foolproof’ – Ron Sexsmith

One of the most surprising, and effective, tracks on Blue Boy is the jazzy torch ballad ‘Foolproof.’ This was Ron Sexsmith’s first prominent use of horns on an album, a flourish he’d return to on later records.

The lonely Chet Baker-style trumpet and brushed drums remind me of Elvis Costello’s ‘Almost Blue,’ and I wouldn’t be surprised if that track wasn’t an influence on this one. Or perhaps both Elvis and Ron were influenced by the same unnamed song when writing their own smokey piano bar ballads.

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Song of the Day #1,051: ‘Just My Heart Talkin” – Ron Sexsmith

Ron Sexsmith kept up his pace of releasing an album every two years, putting out Blue Boy in 2001. I believe this might have been my first exposure to his music, as it was his highest profile release to that date.

In keeping with the old entry point theory, I still consider it his best work (though the competition is stiff).

Blue Boy, produced by Steve Earle, took Sexsmith into several new directions — jazz and reggae, to name a couple. One track borders on psychedelia. But the perfect melodies and introspective lyrics remained intact.

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Song of the Day #1,050: ‘Losing You’ – Randy Newman

If Randy Newman fans hoped Bad Love would be the first in a long string of new releases, they were sorely disappointed. It was a full nine years before Newman released another studio album, 2008’s Harps and Angels.

Harps and Angels picks up pretty much where Bad Love left off, mixing sarcastic talking blues tracks with gorgeous piano-and-strings ballads. It also provided Newman with his first opportunity to comment on the Bush era, and his ‘A Few Words in Defense of Our Country‘ did the job quite well (“the leaders we have, while they’re the worst that we’ve had, are hardly the worst this poor world has seen”).

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