I sat down to play this song on guitar, it had a strange chord progression, the key was in a Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" sound, A, E and D flats which can be strange to play on guitar. The type that you really can't hammer out to mindlessly. Taken back at first until the groove filled my soul intravenously and on a Sunday night I was sitting around half in the bag trying to channel old Led Zep with a dash of George Jones, Chuck Berry and Emmylou Harris.The song is straight forward, little subtext, face value; but it couldn't be better. I was blasting it this morning driving like a maniac north of Manhattan on 287 with little traffic and the windows down. After a round of golf and a stimulating phone conversation with a new female friend I headed two blocks away for a late afternoon martini and oddly enough this song came on. I asked the waitress to turn it up, she complied, and sat there in the glorious June sun, empty bistro looking out on east 65th street while the sun collapsed over the concrete canyons.
A marvelous way to end a weekend and while the scenery didn't quite fit the music on the surface, someplace inside it did. Whether it be the juxtaposition or simply the mood I was in, the sultry phrasing of Alison combined with that honky tonk guitar...it just worked. Pure American music after days of listening to Serge Gainsburg and Leonard Cohen preaching about love and revolution. Road music you can dig sans road while being stationary on a bar stool in a French bistro a thousand miles away from the closest honky tonk.
