Anti-Climacus

It's difficult to explain alt-country to outsiders.* Most people who like country music, by which I mean modern country music, by which I mean "Nashville country," do not see what benefit could derive from combining punk with their favored genre. From the punk end, the hatred of country music is still de rigeur (note, for psychological purposes, that punks tend to hate country in direct proportion to the popularity of country music in their own region); that hatred is modified only by the artfully chosen exception, usually Johnny Cash, who is imagined to be a paragon of tough, no-nonsense country music and not, as was actually the case, an enormously gifted musician with terrible taste in material. So half alt-country's target audience does not believe country music to be in need of saving; the other half does not believe it is worth saving.

Uncle Tupelo was and remains one of those bands: either their purpose and genius strike you or they don't. They managed, in true alt-country manner, to write some very excellent songs in both genres (punk and country), some that used the strengths of each genre to cover the weaknesses of the other, and some that are just plain embarrassing.**

"Gun," in its original version, is closer to the punk side of things than country. As the video shows, however, it translates to acoustic guitar very well, which I believe to be one of the certain tests of good country music. Unlike a number of the songs I've put on my blog in the past, there's no great history here: it came to my attention with a number of other Uncle Tupelo songs, and it has never played a significant part in the musical background of my life. It's just a good song that I like to listen to--and sometimes, that's all you need.


* good alt-country rule of thumb #1: the genre is easily distinguished from regular country music by its total lack of humor.

** good alt-country rule of thumb #2: whenever the lyricists begin pretending like they're from the good-ol' down-home south, skip to the next track. This is doubly imperative if the band is Whiskeytown and Ryan Adams has just put on his 'southern accent.'