To Camden’s Electric Ballroom to see the Drive By Truckers. A proper rock’n’roll venue – painted black, sleazy, sweaty, with a smell of stale beer and a tiny capacity of about 500. A perfect setting for the DBT’s southernrock-grunge-punk-alt.country- whatever-the-fuck-you-want-to-call-it.I’ve come a bit late to the DBTs’ and I’m working my way through the back catalogue. For me they have the appeal of Steve Earle – good ole boys (and a girl) with a taste for the dark side and not afraid to get in touch with their liberal side - only louder, much louder, in a distorted and just-ragged-enough Neil Young & Crazy Horse kind of way.
The themes are not just the traditional ones of working men, love gone bad, trucks, family feuds, guns, incest, poor farmers and whiskey (although it’s all good). This could just be the most honest ‘protest song’ yet about the war in Iraq through the eyes of blue-collar America:
THAT MAN I SHOT
That man I shot, He was trying to kill me
He was trying to kill me He was trying to kill me
That man I shot I didn’t know him
I was just doing my job, maybe so was he
That man I shot, I was in his homeland
I was there to help him but he didn’t want me there
I did not hate him, I still don’t hate him
He was trying to kill me and I had to take him down
That man I shot, I still can see him
When I should be sleeping, tossing and turning
He’s looking at me, eyes looking through me
Break out in cold sweats when I see him standing there
That man I shot, shot not in anger
There’s no denying it was in self-defense
But when I close my eyes, I still can see him
I feel his last breath in the calm dead of night
That man I shot, He was trying to kill me
He was trying to kill me, He was trying to kill me
Sometimes I wonder if I should be there?
I hold my little ones until he disappears
I hold my little ones until he disappears
I hold my little ones until we disappear
And I’m not crazy or at least I never was
But there’s this big thing that can’t get rid of
That man I shot did he have little ones
That he was so proud of that he won’t see grow up?
Was walking down his street, maybe I was in his yard
Was trying to do good I just don’t understand
Patterson Hood / Drive-By Truckers © Razor and Tie Music (BMI)
He was trying to kill me He was trying to kill me
That man I shot I didn’t know him
I was just doing my job, maybe so was he
That man I shot, I was in his homeland
I was there to help him but he didn’t want me there
I did not hate him, I still don’t hate him
He was trying to kill me and I had to take him down
That man I shot, I still can see him
When I should be sleeping, tossing and turning
He’s looking at me, eyes looking through me
Break out in cold sweats when I see him standing there
That man I shot, shot not in anger
There’s no denying it was in self-defense
But when I close my eyes, I still can see him
I feel his last breath in the calm dead of night
That man I shot, He was trying to kill me
He was trying to kill me, He was trying to kill me
Sometimes I wonder if I should be there?
I hold my little ones until he disappears
I hold my little ones until he disappears
I hold my little ones until we disappear
And I’m not crazy or at least I never was
But there’s this big thing that can’t get rid of
That man I shot did he have little ones
That he was so proud of that he won’t see grow up?
Was walking down his street, maybe I was in his yard
Was trying to do good I just don’t understand
Patterson Hood / Drive-By Truckers © Razor and Tie Music (BMI)
1 comment:
So that's what the words are!
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