Anti-Climacus

LINK: This has always been one of my favorite songs; no reason for the link, other than that the album (with at least four other unmistakably excellent songs (Norm Geras discusses one here) has been played a lot recently.

Norm also addresses the pretty typical complaint about Iris DeMent:

There are people of a grumbling inclination who will tell you that Iris DeMent is a bad cultural influence, helping by her contributions to the Momma 'n' Daddy tradition to shore up a sweetened, wholly uncritical vision of home and family life. Do not listen to such people. Their critique is based on too partial a reading of Iris's work. Even in this song we have the line 'But I never knew about the things I missed', a condition suffered by many in childhood - indeed one might say an unavoidable condition of childhood. But there is also darker stuff from her.

Part of what makes "You've Done Nothing Wrong" so great is the impossibility of its premise--who could ever say some of that after a relationship ends?--with the precision of its emotional reference--what else can you say about certain parts except 'just so?'