1. a confession
I don’t listen to lyrics.
It sounds awful, boorish even. And I wish I could tell you that it’s just because I have a much better ear for melodies and harmonies than words. That’s true, by the way. There’s no song that I can’t pick out on the piano, and I can’t look at a song title without the hook filling my head. But the real reason that I don’t pay attention to lyrics is that I am cynical.
It’s a paradox: if the lyrics are about something–in support of some message or political cause–or express some sincere emotion I usually can’t believe the singer. If the lyrics aren’t about anything (like, say, the lyrics of the entire Radiohead oeuvre) then there’s no weight to the song. These flaws don’t prevent me from appreciating good songs, but it does mean that those rare songs that manage to be sincere, artful, and weighty distinguish themselves as being in a class of themselves.
“Outfit” from Drive-By Truckers’ album Decoration Day is one of those songs.
2. outfit
You want to grow up to paint houses like me, a trailer in my yard till you’re 23.
You want to be old after 42 years, keep dropping the hammer and grinding the gears
Well, I used to go out in a Mustang, a 302 Mach One in green.
Me and your Mama made you in the back and I sold it to buy her a ring.
And I learned not to say much of nothing so I figured you already know,
but in case you don’t or maybe forgot, I’ll lay it out real nice and slow:
Don’t call what your wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t worry about losing your accent, a Southern Man tells better jokes.
Have fun but stay clear of the needle. Call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell them you’re bigger than Jesus, don’t give it away.
Six months in a St. Florian foundry, they call it Industrial Park.
Then hospital maintenance and Tech School just to memorize Frigidaire parts.
But I got to missing your Mama, and I got to missing you too.
And I went back to painting for my old man and I guess that’s what I’ll always do
So don’t let ’em take who you are boy, and don’t try to be who you ain’t.
And don’t let me catch you in Kendale with a bucket of wealthy man’s paint.
Don’t call what your wearing an outfit. Don’t ever say your car is broke.
Don’t sing with a fake British accent. Don’t act like your family’s a joke.
Have fun, but stay clear of the needle, call home on your sister’s birthday.
Don’t tell them you’re bigger than Jesus, Don’t give it away.
Don’t give it away
3. american assimilation
I’m not from the South, and the culture that Jason Isbell evokes in his song is not my culture, but every time I listen to this song a wave of homesickness rushes over me. This is because the song is really about assimilating into a wider, wealthier American culture–something that I identify with strongly.
It’s an incredibly nuanced song: half father guiding his son away from the direction that his life has taken; half affirmation for the man that his son will become, a very different man than his father. There’s this dead end, feedback loop aspect to the generations of men that stay in their hometown. The father knows that if his son moves into a trailer on his land, he’s not leaving. One of the most heartbreaking parts of this song is the father’s description of “Tech School.” That was the father’s chance to get out, that was further education: rote memorization of appliance parts. And that’s why the thing that will most disappoint him is to find his son working as a wage-slave, not in control of his own destiny and subsisting on the work that the wealthy consider themselves too important to do.
And yet the father has the foresight to see that–if he makes it out–his son will never be quite like him, and the wisdom to affirm his son anyway. The list in the chorus is sometimes preemptively supportive (“Don’t worry about losing your accent, a Southern Man tells better jokes.”), sometimes practical (“Have fun, but stay clear of the needle, call home on your sister’s birthday.”), and sometimes a reminder that–even though he might be creating a completely new life for himself–he owes it to his family and the people that he grew up with to be respectful of their values even as he operates in a culture that doesn’t share those values.
Like I said, I’m not Southern, but I suspect that one of the reasons the song speaks so directly to me is that the trajectory that this man’s son is on is common to many subgroups within American culture. Every generation that assimilates further worries about losing their accents, they worry that their children don’t take family seriously. The South-specific details, and even the biographical details shared by the narrator of the song are window-dressing to what is actually a very sweet song.