In these days of playing it safe and being politically correct, here's an anachronism for you - two songs about the demon drink and both on the same slab of blue vinyl. That's got to be morally reprehensible. "The Bartender" reeks gloriously of commercial suicide as well, clocking in at over 8 minutes long. How many people have an attention span that long these days?
I'll tell you who has. Anyone who has ever fallen in love with a bartender (female) and made the stupid mistake - after one beer too may, of course - of declaring his feelings. Perhaps that romanticised view of the life of a bartender (female) no longer exists in these days of minimum wage jobs and ill mannered patrons but I'd like to think that such things still happen. Certainly, as Uncle Leon narrates his story of a journey through the hard knocks of life over a tasteful country flavoured backing, I certainly wanted to believe it. I almost want to tell you how it ends but that would spoil the song for you. This isn't just a song, it's a statement and quite possibly the greatest song ever written, especially if you are a barfly.
Staying with the demon drink for "Honky Tonk Ways", the protagonist of the songs aims to break free of domestic bliss and return to is misbehaving ways. That's a common enough theme in a country song, of course, and true to form the woman turns out to be a hell of a lot more realistic in her determination of the outcome than the man. Helped out by Mimi LaValley (borrowed from the band Hogzilla), Uncle Leon ensures that the song reeks of the contempt that comes with having to live with the faults of another. You've got the attraction of the escape from eternal domesticity on the one hand and the enticing love of a good woman on the other making "Honky Tonk Ways" very nearly a mid life crisis song only with a pickup truck instead of a Porsche and in the end Uncle Leon - like the rest of us - knows that he'll never do better than her. I'll raise a glass to that.
Available on blue vinyl from Metropolicana Records.