Rolling Country 2010

This homemade video of mind sort of came out as the anti-'welcome to the future'. Much shorter, too, honest. I recommend the Quicktime version slightly over the WM file.

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/08/04/the-collapse-of-the-economy-for-the-middle-class-explained/

Yall know the principle of programming tolerable hits, that can be lodged on the playlist for an okay while--nothing too good or band, nothing too intense for damn sure, at least in a way that doesn't let you automatically shuffle it into the middle distance, once you've gotten used to its intensity (a nice hot air balloon)? Well, now I'm thinking this used to be harder to do, when stereo LPs were more of an elite audiophile niche etc,(plus, Adult Pop was dominated by moody Sinatra, and cool jazz was a little too intense also, for the affectless effect--even the too-cool/wannabee stuff was like "Hey honey ain't I cooool--now take off my glasses") Most mass-aimed music was via AM radio, 45s, the occasional mono 10 or 12 inch (which I used to buy with my allowance and hoarded school lunch money, cos they were significantly cheaper) A song meant to be or anyway with the potential to be tolerably popular, might sound weird, in a good band or just plain way, or gratingly cheesy--not centrist (see, I can be political too)(also, humanity is an intergalatic virus, so why aren't there more country songs about it, explicitly I mean? Take off the hat and shades!)

"Might sound weird, in a good *bad* or just plain way" was what I meant to say.

What, like stuff on Hee-Haw?

Yeah, when it was meant to sound nicer than that!

of course Hee Haw was Laugh-In x Hillbilly Corn, and HC was big mainstream fad in 40s, hung on after that in some quarters, re the hillbilly jokes on Mad Men. But those are not nice jokes, and Laugh-In with a whiff of the barnyard was not nice enough for some.

Ah, but Gene London of Cartoon Corners General Store and Captain Kangaroo liked to play the spoons. They were the epitome of nice. And, of course, there was Sally Starr.

I never actually thought there wasn't anything cruel about the two guys on Hee-Haw doing the snippet of "Pfft You Were Gone." However, it's possible they were doing it for the hint of derision the weekly skit would bring out in viewers.

I think Taylor Swift is a half-way decent singer and musician, singing more or less who she is (or at least used to be, before the fame) and what she knows. Its just that what she knows/who she is annoys the hell out of me.

You mean she's conceited? She's pretty erratic live, when she tries to do without backup singers.

Even Peter Parker got conceited after that black Spidey suit thing got stuck to him.

Same thing happened to me, I'm a better man for copping to it.

Thanks for the list xhuxx. Anybody heard this?

Caitlin Rose: Own Side Now
(Names)
4 / 5
Maddy Costa
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 August 2010 22.45 BST
Caitlin Rose
Own Side Now
Names Records
2010
Earlier this year, Nashville-based Caitlin Rose released an EP of songs recorded in 2008, which introduced a promisingly wry lyricist unable to decide whether she wanted to sound like Loretta Lynn or Kimya Dawson. On her debut album, the 23-year-old thrillingly finds her own voice. Own Side is sad and strong as she walks away from a careless lover, playful in Spare Me as she dashes off the delicious line: "Love is just one more useless thing you don't need, but you can't throw away." Now pure country, her songwriting has taken a leap, too, delivering a profusion (sometimes an excess) of memorable choruses and arrangements freighted with emotion. Her assurance is most striking in two contrasting songs about self-discovery, New York City and Things Change: the former a ribald picaresque, the latter suffused with regret, set to bruised piano and quivering cymbals.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

conjunto accordionist Esteban Jordan died. I posted an obit here:

Norteño y conjunto: search and destroy.

xpost

I listened to it in a shop last week, and I thought it sounded good - it's a Mark Nevers production, of the light and airy variety, they generally sound good. I wasn't grabbed enough by the songs on first listen to shell out the full price, for whatever that's worth.

So, that toilet that George sang his blues about apparently pushed China over the top -- Don't know if anybody else noticed, but business sections are reporting this morning that, sometime after midnight, China officially passed Japan as the world's second-biggest economy, behind the U.S. Congratulations!

George also sent me this link to a (Vancouver/Regina/Nashville-based) singer/guitarist excellently named Val Halla over the weekend. He calls her ""Kellie Pickler does ZZ Top or maybe the Road Hammers," which means I definitely need to check her out when I don't have so much family visiting.

http://www.valhallaonline.com/music.php

And this morning, Pareles on the new Mellencamp (my review of which goes online tomorrow I believe), and Caramanica on the new Adkins. Re the former: Just goes to show how musically illiterate I am, but I swear in three decades of thinking too much (but not enough?) about this stuff, it never once occurred to me that "refrains" and "choruses" are two different things. And re the latter: Just goes to show how porn-illiterate I am, but can't believe I missed the "Brown Chicken Brown Cow" (in Trace's barn sex song) = "bow chicka wow wow" pun. Have never heard that, uh, chord progression or whatever in an actual porn movie, I'm pretty sure (not that I'm anywhere near to an expert on those in the first place), but have usually gotten the (dumb) joke when Veronica Mars or whoever uses it. I guess Trace, as is his tendency, was just too subtle about the issue. (Also, I definitely like Trace's rockers more than Caramanica does, and he seems to have use for more of the ballads. We both like the funnny songs.)

Anyway, scroll down for both reviews:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/arts/music/16choice.html

I can't tell if the Pareles review is a pick or pan.

Thanks for the Everett rec, xhuxk! I've been playing Red Revelations all weekend.

By definition, the NY Times can't like an album with music as xhuxk described. Not packaged with reviews about Brian Wilson, the 'grizzled antique haze' of John Mellencamp, and whatever is on the page
over. Nope, can't happen, like waiting to observe table-top fusion. If you think you saw it, check instruments again.

China officially passed Japan as the world's second-biggest economy, behind the U.S.
Congratulations!

It's the beginning of the last chapter of a book we all get to be in.

xpost

Caitlin Rose. Heard and still have this EP she did a couple years ago with some originals and a cover of the Stones' "Dead Flowers." Think she was about 18 or something. Her mom is a well-known Nashville songwriter. Saw Rose at a show opening for Holly Golightly in late '08 and wasn't knocked out or anything, she's cute. As with a lot of Mark Nevers records, it seems to have been released in the UK before it got out in the USA.

music-making methods that are the cheapest and most homespun will survive; I think this is part of the reason bluegrass and acoustic music in general have thrived, as a throwback to simpler times.

Scott and Phil had related theories on a different thread a couple weeks ago. To be honest, though I do agree with a lot of what Scott says, this still mostly sounds like wishful thinking to me (especially Edd's Unplugged Wins Out hypothesis), but I'm not sure I can exactly formulate why yet.

i could be crazy but i think one of the hidden benefits of the destruction of the record industry is a new local yokelism. people doing more stuff on their own for local folks and not caring - or even hoping anymore - that they are gonna hit it big anytime soon. so there just seems to be more of an emphasis on DIY fun. people putting out their own stuff, selling their own stuff, booking their own shows. and when people tour its more of an excuse to take a vacation from their day job than an opportunity to become discovered or be the next big thing. everyone who plays here just seems genuinely happy to be playing for people and they don't really want anything more. they certainly don't want to be the next lightning bolt or whatever. i'm sure there are still lots of people out there with ambition and drive for glory, but with so few pots of gold over the rainbow out there people have become more realistic in a sense. playing for laughs and for your friends is way more satisfying than jumping through hoops for some label schmuck if you ask me. and i realize this means that a lot of great musicians get stuck working at whole foods or giving tons of guitar lessons instead of touring the world, but whole foods isn't that bad and SOMEONE has to teach bored kids how to play the guitar. also, people are less and less willing to pay big money for big shows. so they are seeking out the free folk festivals and jazz in the park afternoons and whatever else is nearby and free. and i think that's great. i really do.

― scott seward, Wednesday, 4 August 2010 20:31

I've been thinking the same thing, that it's gonna go from "Hey, have you heard this record?" to "There's this guy in my town who's a really great guitar player."

― Born In A Test Tube, Raised In A Cage (unperson), Wednesday, 4 August 2010 21:29

The larger point in the joys of rediscovering yokelism is that it was never that great to begin with.

Having worked at a newspaper which was obsessed with yokelism in the pre-Web era, I can personally attest that there's often not much of real greatness in the local crops, no matter revision of your standards downward. And such yokelism place-in-line is dictated by all the usual negatives which were in place prior to the great Internet enlightenment. Who has the best connections at the local club, who is the big shot at the music store, who is the best friends with the features editor at the local newspaper. Seen it, worked to dismember it, done it.

And then there's the argument that devolving the middle class until its grapes-of-wrath type American pauperism tend to like take any shine off the pleasures of always having the opportunity to throw a few dollars at the local buskers in the park.

Actually, the unplugged-wins-out world is not one I wish for. Aesthetically I'm on the side of the people who plug in and wig out on the supposedly superior folkie-isms and base usages of the past. I'm not a fan of most acoustic music that's being made at present, and I've made my problems with bluegrass pretty clear too. I like acoustic guitars and I have a sneaking half-love for folkiedom in general, but I think rocking out with acoustic guitars is what's cool about them. So my comment is purely descriptive not even prescriptive much less proscriptive. The next I time I go to the local hipster record store and see some guy with a girl and they're playing banjo and cello...but I do think this era is one of revived yokelism as Scott puts it, and he's describing East Nashville and its array of neo-folkies and Dedicated Songwriters above, not just Nashville obviously but a lot of stuff. Part of the problem I have with country music--well, not the music itself so much but the thinking about it--is this reverence for the past that doesn't seem to much of a sense of humor. It's just like blues fan generally are, they see the surface elements of the form or think it's the usual reverse-hipsterist kind of thing that suddenly in the '80s made stuff like the Louvin Brothers cool to like, because it all reversed the taste settings hip music fans had been cruising on for years. I saw it happen here as well all did probably in our respective enclaves.

Personally, I never had much use for it, to me country was honky-tonk music about fuck-ups, drunks, pill-poppers, bearded ass men, truck drivers, good old boys who know how to bury dead cattle and horses in fields using large-scale earth-moving equipment, and so forth. No point in acting hip about any of it, it's just what the form once upon a time described for an audience who completely understood what and where the fun was.

Also (this is an interesting subject, don't you think?), I think the role of naked ambition is an essential part of thinking about pop music. you want to entertain people, make them happy, enlarge their world, get sexed and get rich. the guy nursing his dreams while bagging at Whole Foods may have these dreams, in fact he likely does, but is he honest enough to say so? The acoustic-music thing enables a lot of marginally talented but hip, sincere and therefore probably boring musicians--good people but totally boring musicians, which describes a lot of unexceptionable but completely forgettable people in Nashville--to have a career. The greatest country artists of the past (some are still going) are totally insane and driven people, Ray Price was as driven a guy as Miles Davis or Duke Ellington, and Bill Monroe was too. I think it's fine to play music for your own pleasure, I know a lot of people who do it and I like to play a little piano, it's relaxing and I usually learn something useful to me as a writer on music. But I believe in professionalism and ambition and I certainly don't wish for the Unplugged People to win, altho I think they kinda already have.

The acoustic-music thing enables a lot of marginally talented but hip, sincere and therefore probably boring musicians--good people but totally boring musicians, which describes a lot of unexceptionable but completely forgettable people in Nashville--to have a career. The greatest country artists of the past (some are still going) are totally insane and driven people

Much much smaller talent people, but also descriptive of the Lehigh Valley.

Since this type doesn't have much of a sense of humor in any local genre -- too busy adhering to
local mores with too much reverence to style rather than the risk of being taken for fools.

What's happened with "acoustic" music is of course in some ways a good thing. Historical perspective and broadening-of-canon are things I'm all for. Analogous in many ways to what's happened with blues and African-American music--scholarship has succeeded in helping us see how what used to be designated just "blues" has intersected with entertainment music, as it's called, over the years. Demystified it to some degree. I also think part of this is that there's just a generation or two of people who have very different ideas of what rock 'n' roll is than a boomer (born Nov. 1958) like me does. It's inevitable that the marginal music of yesteryear assumes a luster it didn't have due to its relationship to music that was far more influential at the time, and more popular. I realize that it's impossible to fight revisionism. I suppose once you drain the angst from musical forms that are about suffering, you get what we have in today's country music?

Was gonna post this on the Los Lobos thread, but seemed relevant to country--the new one, Tin Can Trust, sure has some moments, esp. in the opener, "Burn It Down," that remind me of country. In fact, mentally add another voice to that arrangement and you have something pretty close to what the Row does. In that, it's pretty good, as is the whole record, but not great, or maybe it's just that the words signify more to me than the music, which seems a tad too received and relaxed to really bowl anyone over. They do make you feel the resignation and sense of loss they want you to feel, but perhaps the main difference between it and comparable Nashville product is the way Los Lobos comes at the subject of economic downturn with a built-in out. Which may mean their cultural parameters are more capacious and they're more honest about what they're observing, plus obviously they're coming at it from a lefty position. I do like it when they suggest blues and soul throughout the record. Funny, listening to the wistful Patterson Hood record from last year and hearing some similarities, as in "Granddaddy." Or the cover of Todd Rundgren's "The Range War." In fact, Patterson may even be better at it than Los Lobos, even given Hood's inferiority to David Hidalgo as singer. Hood's social reality is pretty fucking grim and he makes me feel it with the music and the words.

the role of naked ambition is an essential part of thinking about pop music

Yeah, obviously, I've been writing that for 25 years -- If you get rid of music's hunger for stardom and riches, you tend to lose something musically, too. Humility and settling for the neighborhood bar are limiting by definition. So I'm with George here -- one big reason local yokels stay local is that the vast majority of them just aren't very exciting. (And one of the reasons I've mostly given up the quest for the perfect CDBaby act I was on a few years back is that, in the long run, even most of the good ones were no match from the stuff I was hearing from actual record labels, frequently major ones. They might sound pretty good for a few listens, but a year down the line, I wasn't returning to them.)

"...no match for the stuff..." etc. (In other words, it's easy to romanticize the best band in your neighborhood, and they might even be fun to drink a beer to -- and maybe the best folkie in your 'hood is fun to drink coffee to, I wouldn't know -- but they're probably still not that good.)

yeah, right, I kinda gave up on the CDBaby quest myself. about the best you can hope for is like some mid-level Appleseed act--I tried in vain yesterday to listen to the Angel Band and gave up.

Nashville is slightly different in that there are a lot of "local" acts who are better than the average, like Will Kimbrough, Tommy Womack, David Olney...and the millions of singer-songwriters who make their own records here freed of the financial worries of stardom, like Beth Chapman or Gretchen Peters, often do interesting work, but it's all within safe confines. And right, ambition and its power seem obvious starting points for thinking about pop (and playing it), but I often feel as though we're living in a passive-aggressive age...what can a man do when he goes to Applebee's and the food is so mediocre than he wishes Michael Scott (of the American The Office) would pop over to sing a song or two? Talk about naked ambition.

Got Marshall Chapman's new one in the mail today. She wrote a fine autobiography. I remember hearing her stuff years ago and was never totally impressed--should I be? Haven't heard the new one yet but it looks depressingly sincere.

on the other hand, the folkie and the local seem pretty reliable at a certain level...like Marley's Ghost or someone, nothing terribly exciting, or Susan Cowsill...

I've known people were talented as hell, but never made it past amateur or semi-prp for whatever reasons, like the circuting riding mining engineer who also teaches in West Alabama towns that lack school music teachers/band programs. But he should crawl off in the mine cos he's not plugged into the Frampton Standard. And of course there are no mediocre mega-stars, cos they're all so driven (Chesney's doing chin-ups right now!)

sorry bout the typos, but yall's patronizing generalities make for us indigno citizens

Speaking of Los Lobos, and not to be contrarian, but it seems like the narrator is on the verge, he's some old tired guy, but made up his mind to do something, take revenge and/or a commission, various indicators of volatility keep rolling by or up the block, and little jolts--I know, enough with the foreplay already, but the tension keeps getting renewed, reinforced, and the Dead cover fits perfectly, with no crunchy granola attached (it's all sudewalks and loud-ass traffic, the whole album, and then there's the sardonic "happy ending" history short). A cliche to say it's a soundtrack for movies you can make up, but it really seems to work that way, rumbling implications--if it were so definite a storyline, would get too familiar too fast, perhaps. Anyway, not country, but not bad (and could see some old country guy making his mind up like this guy does, though with a dif musical feel)

Humility and settling for the neighborhood bar are limiting by definition.

This only begins to touch upon it. First, there's the stone fact that extremism of any kind isn't tolerated in the neighborhood bar. Unless the audience is going to spend its entire payday check, or a substantial part of it. Which forgives a lot.

I remember talking to the owner of a local place in the Valley and he always appreciated biker audiences. At the time, they wouldn't fill the place, but they'd spend all their money. So they could do anything, and so could the bands that played for them -- within some limits. And the owner never would mind.

On the other hand, most of the places I dealt with regularly got crimped if someone played too loud and the place wasn't packed enough to soak up the volume/shock wave. And that defeats a lot of very good music. Why? Because it's always too loud if it's to a half or more empty house -- which it always is for beginners no matter how good they are, or on off nights. So there's an imposed conservatism that selects for the mediocre and auto-limiters, the inoffensive run-of-the-mill types. And for some, they just get ruined -- or conditioned, from play too long in the joints. The 20-minute fern bar blues number by bald white guys in denim, coming to mind. Or anyone wearing a cowboy hat onstage in the corner in the Lehigh Valley.

Really, there's a book in the sociology of it.

And of course there are no mediocre mega-stars, cos they're all so driven (Chesney's doing chin-ups right now!)

Nah, of course there are plenty. There's mediocrity (and, potentially, greatness) at all levels. (Though I like the current Chesney single fine, and he's made plenty of better than mediocre music, and I doubt many unknown acts even here in Austin could match his output over the years if given the chance.) All I'm saying is that it's ridiculous to pretend the biz's gatekeepers are entirely inept.

On the other hand, at least when it comes to music marketed as "rock" (as opposed to country), those biz gatekeepers sure have been doing a pretty amazing approximation of ineptness for the past decade or two regardless. So what the hell do I know? (Then again, it's not like I've heard all that many great "rock" acts they've missed the boat on in the recent past, either.)

And I also have to assume that some of the Southern Soul acts I've been liking so much lately (and would take over anybody currently on the r&b chart) might play live in somebody's neighborhood sometime. I just figure said neighborhoods are pretty few and far between, is all. So I'm obviously somewhat ambivalent on the issue. But Don, I'm really not trying to generalize patronizingly, honest.

yeah, Don, you get at what I hear in the Lobos record. They're leaving the city but they don't know for where. Country guys don't know either, but their refuge is probably just farther out in the country. I do hear the opening track as, formally, country.

Probably I got off track talking about mid-level acts. I think the original point was just that acoustic music makes sense economically and socially in this era, for a lot of reasons. I think it's interesting to consider what kind of talent country execs/A&R people are looking for. Not especially songwriting, right, or "conceptual" (we all know how hostile the powers that be are to autonomy in country music), but...vocal, image, looks. And it is true there are plenty of people who are under-appreciated, as Don says, local guys with more to offer. So how do these folks make their Statement to the World, then? What does it take?

More on the Nuge's deer baiting. Apparently the show which had him doing this was broadcast in February, at which time it generated some comment on various hunting boards.

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2010/08/17/tuesday-morning-nugent/

It's true that local guys can get resented (and internalize directice for goin' above their raisin', but that's why I thought of the circuit-riding guy, not that circuits can't produce/demand a lot of hacks. But the biz is so weird now, and grassroots technology provides some new-ish means of recording and exposure (until the broadband frontier gets totally fenced in), that it's harder to provide reliable gate-keeping--but I don't want to automatically shut out *or* cut slack for underdogs. Yeah, Chesney's good sometimes.

internalize repressive directives, I meant.

Nashville's Barry Mazor has a new column on country for the 9513 website. Read why Barry doesn't think it's any fun to read about Buck Owens as big country dick, and other burning issues, here.

until the broadband frontier gets totally fenced in

Already happening to a certain extent. One, the US lags all other successful western nations in broadband. Mostly because of the US "free market" model, which isn't a free market at all, but which does view Internet as a commodity. So you get commodity pricing and service, which is uncompetitive and not great. Whereas other western nations see broadband as a key to good things, subsidizing better faster access for
cheaper.

Second, by default, all US providers cricumscribe your upload speed all the time. Download speed some of the time. You can make the argument that individuals don't need high velocity upload unless they want to pay a premium. But that just puts that half of broadband access into the domain of the usual big corporate entertainment providers.

Yeah, right now I'm listening to an NPR story, mentioning that the FCC has 400,000,000 bucks set aside to extend broadband into rural areas, but it's somewhat controversial, re Big Gov vs. Free Enterprise, though the latter hasn't shown much interest, which is the FCC's point. No doubt Rand Paul and his new colleagues will save us. The story also mentions rural access to medical specialists online, by referral and appointment. It can be good--if you have access. Somebody should write a country song about having to wait at the library, to get your auto-clock rationed hour of doing course work, filling out on-line job applications, or gov forms.Incl gov partnerships, like the IRS with Turbo-Tax, if you can afford that, and someday you'll have to afford and/or access something like that,privitization/"personalization" or no. Even to read the news, or a book--more and more new books will be e-reader only, and in the cloud,with your music collection, and remember Amazon cut off access to some Orwell titles, when they had a dispute with someone who thought he was still the "publisher."

Access of those who thought they were still "buyers," that is.

that the FCC has 400,000,000 bucks set aside to extend broadband into rural areas

It's not the only problem. Broadband access, for a lot who have it in the US, just isn't that great a commercial offering compared to other places.

And telepresence doctoring doesn't replace face to face. I do recall, when going to the doctor many times as a child and teenager before it went goodbye, that touch and close eyeballing were parts of the
diagnostic process. As well as the continuity of seeing someone who knew your history a bit, from repeated visit.

Somebody should write a country song about having to wait at the library (etc) ...

Good idea.

Pete Seeger would be ripe for it if he could be regenerated.

someone should write a song about the homeless using the library. in Nashville, we have a beautiful ornate huge library smack downtown. and the homeless use it for bathroom, sleep, internet access...they smell funky but I don't mind, far be it from me to judge, you know? but it generates a lot of angst.

Don, I passed along your addy to Mark Linn at Delmore re the Riley/ Gary Stewart record, which I want to write more about here, and will be covering for the Scene, looks like. Chuck, George, if you want to pass along yr physical addresses to me, Linn tells me he's into sending out some copies to people who might appreciate...feel free to hit me via ilx e-mail...

got a copy of two great Haggards from '71/'72 today, "California Cottonfields" and "Tulare Dust" era, one of those Capitol twofers...man, what great stuff, what astringent guitar playing, and ol' Hag won't be seen at Huntsville, no sir.

Great,thanks ebb! Mebbe I can cover that too. Yeah, I know about the homeless in the bigger library, the one across the river. I accidentally got one of those guys in trouble with the Montgomery Police, though he may have deserved (and emerged a better man for) it, far as I heard later. Nashville-wise, "King of the Road" seems pretty close, "Smokin' old stogies I have found/Checkin' the locks when there's no one around", not that they all do that, though the ones that do aren't nec. that discreet.

Oh yeah, after the Hag doc I linked upthread, was re-reading xgau's 70s tracking of Merle, wotta narrative. Think I might get the tracks he mentions from the Amazon MP3 Store, see what kind of wagon train that can turn into (Kinda reminds me of when I read, in unbroken sequence, all xhuxx's Accidental Evolution comments on John Mellentemplate)(whose new album sequences performances in Sun Studios, Robert Johnson's hotel room, hell why not by Hank's grave, John? Yall come!)

(Greil Marcus's ancestors are buried across the row from Hank, I shit you not)

Am absorbing the new Adkins CD, on xhuxk's recommendation. I like it, more later. However, the lead-off tune, the boom-chika-boom thing isn't great at all. Once it's going it sounds like something I'd pass on from Jason Aldean. It's boring mostly hookless rhythmic hard rock lite with stupid lyrics. And it has the Deliverance-banjo meaninglessly tied to it, the equiv of a jaw harp (which would be better). And someone should explain to me why it's necessary to crap up so many cuts with it as seasoning. Anyway, he loses it for the rest of the CD, which is great by me.

Yeah, I hope I wasn't too misleading there. I like the guitar crunch that "Brown Chicken Brown Cow" revolves around, and the porn-pun conceipt hit me as passing clever once the frigging New York Times explained it to me, but as a song it's still kind of meh -- not nearly as successful a butt-rocker as "Ala-Freakin-Bama" or "Whoop A Man's Ass," or "Marry For Money" or "Hauling One Thing" last time out for that matter. (And I still much prefer X to Cowboy's Back In Town, as an album.) Favorites on the new one, beyond the two just named, are probably "Hold My Beer" and "Hell, I Can Do That," and maybe "Break Her Fall." Though I may just need more time with the ballads, as usual.