John Rich's Songwriting Tips #58

When you're looking for inspiration to write a great country song, it's not hard to find. I look to a specific era of music bygone to enliven my creative spirit. It was a simpler time that all of us Nashville writers are trying to relive every day - 1988. It was a place where dreams were bought and sold, lived and lost - the Sunset Strip. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about dammit! Aquanet, spandex and groupies (that's my favorite part)…those were the glory days of music! Just turn on your radio, if you don't believe me. All us 33-45 year olds are remembering our lush mullets and ripped jeans as we write these country rockers and power ballads. If my creative tank is dry, just pull up the Crue on the iTunes and do what they did. Hell, it got them ugly f*ckers leg, it's gotta work for me, your Music Row Mackdaddy!  I've even got a template set up, like Mad Libs. Just take, say "Girls, Girls, Girls," dial down the riffs a little, drop in your lyrics about making love in the bed of a Dodge, weave a minute amount of fiddle through the proceeding and VOILA bitches! You've got you a top 10 country hit that will make me a million, but nobody will remember by next month. That's how we do. So build up that collection of Faster Pussycat, Skid Row, GnR, Kix and Britny Fox and you can be a hit Nashville songwriter too!






*Not actually written by John Rich.

Top 10 Shortest Books by Country Artists IV

10. Cosmetic Procedures I Skipped - Reba McEntire

09. All My #1s: Piano, Vocals, Guitar Songbook - Chad Brock

08. Thought Provoking Conversations with Jake Owen

07. Roller Coasters I'm Tall Enough to Ride - Shooter Jennings

06. On My Own: All the Good Quitting Sugarland Has Done Me - Kristen Hall

05. How to Ride Off Into the Sunset, Gracefully - Randy Travis

04. All the Books I've Read - Brantley Gilbert

03. Actual Country Songs We Played This Year - MISS 103 (or your local station)

02. Ruling the Roost: A Man's Guide to Wearing the Pants in the Family - Casey Donahew

01. Stupid-Ass Lines I Wouldn't Sing - Luke Bryan

Warning Label on New Rascal Flatts Album

3 Up, 3 Down

Here's the first of a new series to take the place of the "Promo Only Country Radio" reviews. Those had to go by the wayside due to me losing my, uh, "source" that provided me with those monthly compilations. Anyway, this'll be a monthly feature that picks out 3 songs I really like and 3 songs I really hate from the Top 40 chart.

3 UP

Alan Jackson - So You Don't Have to Love Me Anymore

That this song still sits at #33 on the charts, weeks after its release, is another major indictment of country radio. This isn't the depressing real-life financial hardship tale of Ronnie Dunn's criminally overlooked "Cost of Livin'," this is a more accessible prototypical (though not assembly-line built or soulless) Alan Jackson ballad. Alan Jackson, the modern legend. Alan Jackson, one of the two remaining big-ticket country singers with any ties back to what country really is. It's a great tune that anyone can relate to, well-written and well-sung. What's the problem? I know he's pushing 55, but he's still relatively wrinkle-free and attractive (I know that's all you care about, despite you being a non-visual medium). Play it, country radio. Save whatever minuscule pieces of your soul you have left. A

Eric Church - Springsteen

Not very country. Way beyond name-dropping. A few clichés here and there. I should hate this song, right? Maybe, but some songs just have "it." "Springsteen" has it-factor by the truckload. It's atmospheric, sincere and powerful. Eric has a career-defining single with this one. It's too far removed from steel-guitars and fiddles to be a country music classic, but without a doubt, it's a modern pop-country masterpiece. A

Eli Young Band - Even if it Breaks Your Heart

Not as good as the original by Will Hoge, but still far above most of what's charting these days. Anytime you can hear a well-performed song that doesn't mention trucks or bikini tops, you've got to call that a win. The Eli Young Band really knows its way around a catchy hook and they picked a great song to show off their chops. B+

3 DOWN

Carrie Underwood - Good Girl

Loud, screechy, obnoxious, annoying. I can't think of any positive terms to use in describing this song, mostly because there aren't any positives. It's an overcooked Joan Jett meets pop-country song that's built - not created - strictly to grow awareness of Underwood's upcoming Blown Away release. This song meets the requirement of "earworm," but only because it beats you senseless over the head with the riffs and hook until it's lodged in your brain without your approval. D

Kip Moore - Somethin' Bout a Truck

This tries to come off as something other than a typical country listing song, but it's just a pig with different color lipstick. The nursery rhyme reminiscent chorus harkens back to The House that Jack Built in some ways, and that's as clever as the song gets. If all Nashville's songwriters are doing these days is finding new ways to say the same shit, it's time for a sea-change. They truly need a reality check. D

Kenny Chesney w/Tim McGraw - Feel Like a Rock Star

If you don't see/hear anything wrong here, you're part of the problem. This is the sound of two of the elder statesmen of pop-country having, if not a mid-life crisis, at least a mid-life bad day. This is the musical equivalent of a 43 year-old sagging his pants and donning a flat brim cap. Maybe, maybe, if this song had come out ten years ago, it wouldn't bother me much, but since it's part of a trend towards the push of country towards cock-rock, it's not cool with me. Not just that, but it's a lunk-headedly overt song. Even Brantley Gilbert wouldn't be this obvious. I know it's just meant to be a fun duet that builds up excitement for the Chesney/McGraw tour, but they could have done something fun that still had the tiniest filament of a thread tied to actual country music. D-

Brantley Gilbert's New Tattoo!

And here's a closer look...

Sounds Painful

by Kelcy Salisbury

After a few poorly written meanderings on the relative merits of various recently released albums, I felt like it was a good time to take a step back and provide a poorly written, rambling review of a couple of albums that were formative in my musical journey.  So without further ado here is the first of however many of these Trailer will let me write.

In the early to mid 1990's alternative music was exploding worldwide.  Of course the Seattle scene was huge with bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains making music that seismically altered the landscape of rock radio.  Austin, TX, long a hotbed for the "weird" was also playing a major role in the alternative rock scene, along with such locations as San Francisco and New York.  Along about 1994 someone (I'm not sure who and am a bit too lazy to do the research to find out) had the brilliant idea to combine some of the brightest lights of the alternative rock scene with a handful of Willie Nelson tunes for a project that would become Twisted Willie.  This album was a seminal point in my discovery of music.  I discovered The Presidents Of The United States and the Supersuckers through this album, along with rediscovering just how cool Willie's music was and heard what I believe to be the beginning of the third act of Johnny Cash's career.  It's not a perfect album, every song doesn't work, but the overall product is well worth hearing (or rediscovering if you haven't heard it in a while.)

The album opens with Johnny Cash (backed by Alice in Chains in one of their last recordings before Layne Stayley's death) covering Time of the Preacher.  The song gives a glance at what Cash would later create with Rick Rubin. Another highlight is Jerry Cantrell's haunting solo performance of I've Seen All Of This World I Care To See. Supersuckers' cover of Bloody Mary Morning is another great entry on the album.  This song seems to have been written for a more punk styled interpretation, and that's exactly what it gets.

Jello Biafra covers Still Is Still Moving To Me, and knocks it out of the park.

My personal favorite on the album is The Presidents Of The United States hyper, desperate sounding cover of Devil In A Sleeping Bag.  To this day I often find myself playing this cut on repeat.

Jesse Dayton absolutely kills Sad Songs And Waltzes, before Waylon adds his inimitable stylings  to I Never Cared For You.

The album closes with a haunting version of Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground by Kelly Deal.

While there are some tracks that don't hold up to the overall standard, particularly X on Home Motel, overall it's an older album well worth a listen that has held up well over the nearly 20 years since it's release and is well worth the purchase price on iTunes.  So give it a listen whether you're a fan of old school alt-rock or Willie Nelson.  If nothing else it proves what an incredibly strong song writer Willie Nelson is, a fact that occasionally gets lost in Beer For My Horses type dreck.

Purchase Twisted Willie here or here.

Some More Music eCards

Awkward Gary Levox Photo of the Week

Some Music-related eCards

YouTube Gems: Jason Eady

From his epic new album (by far the best country release of 2012 so far), AM Country Heaven, here's Jason Eady with "Wishful Drinking."

Surprising Development from Shooter Jennings' Appearance on The View

New couple alert!!

(sorry Drea)

An Informative Venn Diagram

Smells Like Country

When I found out Randy Houser's new single is called "How Country Feels," that set my twisted mind in motion.

Smells Like Country

©2012 Farce the Music Satires

When I drive my pickup down Poontang Road

Tossin' out a big ol' garbage load

Deer guts and empty bottles of 'skey

Man, that smells like country to me

When I scare up a skunk in the soybean field

And catch a whiff of the old paper mill

Cut a big fart cuz I ate baked beans

Man, that smells like country to me

Chorus

Yeah, that's the odor of the rural route

Them's the scents I'm about, ya see

Hey city boy, it ain't foul it ain't funky

Naw, that smells like country

to me

When my woman's  been mowing in daisy dukes

She gets me a beer and takes off my boots

And we make sweet love on the pleather seat

Man, that smells like country to me

(Chorus)

Bridge

Dead fish rotting in the Okatoma

Cow crap's such a sweet aroma

Chitlins, moonshine, Ford exhaust

If you don't like it, that's your loss

Cause that's the odor of the rural route

Them's the scents I'm about, ya see

Hey city boy, it ain't foul it ain't funky

Naw, that smells like country

to me

Shooter Jennings - The Real Me

From last night's David Letterman appearance, here's Shooter with "The Real Me."

Shooter Jennings - The Farce the Music Interview

Today, singer/songwriter/country music ambassador/country royalty/actor/producer/jackass Shooter Jennings sits down with FTM for this incisive, sharp-witted interview. We really cut through the b.s. and get down to some profound answers.

- - - - - -

FTM: Hello Shooter! It was nice of you to take a break from your busy Tweeting schedule to make time for us!

Shooter: No problem.  It's hard out there for a pimp.  Most of the time I'm keeping up with your love affair with modern country.

FTM: Yeah, I know. Well, I'm gonna skip past formalities and get to some pressing questions. Does musical talent run in your family?

Shooter:  Well, you would think it would, but these days I'm not so sure!  But love of music definitely runs in my family. From all my brothers and sisters to my aunts and uncles, music and records have been very important in our lives.  Obviously we all like Waylon records a lot too!

FTM: Obviously, that was a reader question. I ain't neerly that stupid. 

Next question: Do you consider yourself an outlaw? Could you kick Brantley Gilbert's ass?

Shooter: Haha!  I certainly think I could give the guy a run for his money.  I'm little and I bite.  But at the end of the day, the outlaw thing has been so overdone at this point I like to think I'm an outlaw-outlaw.  A double outlaw. Because I wanna outlaw outlaws, get it?   

FTM: Speaking of outlaws, just what the heck is XXX music? Are you that big into porn?

Shooter: Only the kind that you can get at ammo stores.  But seriously, the website we set up last year GiveMeMyXXX.com was originally a petition to try and get folks to pay attention to what I felt was a very big and very unfair gap in modern music.  This contingent of artists don't fit into Nashville or Red Dirt circles really, and they're too hard edged for Country radio, and they're too Country for Rock radio.  I always felt I fell in that gap, and artists like Hank 3 did as well.  But that gap has grown considerably, and I wanted to create a resource page for people to hear, read about and find more of these bands.  Then we started releasing compilations which I think really got people into a lot of artists they'd never heard before.  By the end of it all, I felt pretty proud of the work we did last year.  Now we're trying to create some more active resources to help people find music, as well as playing shows and working in the studio with them.  I just think there's a tidal change about to come with Country.  I think we're gonna start seeing more and more of these bands get closer and closer to the mainstream until it cracks.  Most people I know love Scott H. Biram and Hellbound Glory.  It's like the new rock and roll in a way too.  So to answer your question, the XXX moniker isn't something that we're trying to force on anyone, it was just a way of categorizing it…  but at the end of the day I think we got some people's attention.

FTM: Who would win in an arm wrestling match: You or Hank 3?

Shooter:   Probably Hank 3.  He's got really long forearms.  But I do hear he's sober now.  Maybe I'd have a leg up if I smoked some meth and got all fired up on Mountain Dew.

FTM: I once listed you as one of the 10 worst vocalists in music. Is your friendliness towards me just an attempt to draw me in close and then have your trenchcoat-clad henchmen layeth the smack down on me?

Shooter: No, no, no, man.  It's more of a birds of a feather thing man.  You're one of the worst writers in music and I'm one of the worst vocalists, and we finally came together.  So happy together.

FTM: Touché! Your new album is called Family Man and you are, in fact, a family man. Coincidence?

Shooter: I'm shocked you put that one together.  I love being a father so I can proudly say I am a family man.  Not to get too serious, but I definitely feel like (the irony of the title aside) I've definitely been changed quite a bit by my family.  For the most part, I don't have to sit around and dream up songs about getting high or why new country music sucks all day.  Now I write songs about why it's hard to be high and be a good father and why new country music sucks all day.

FTM: You didn't name your kids typical stupid celebrity baby names like Apple or Blisterpack. Why?

Shooter: Blisterpack! Wow. I should have thought about that one.  Alabama and Blackjack are pretty normal names where I come from.  But fuck man, my name is Shooter.  As a kid Shitter, Tooter, anything but fucking Shooter.  So at least Blackjack sounds like he's gonna fuckin' rob you if you fuck with him.  He acts that way too.  He's a little shit hook with a great sense of humor.  Alabama runs the show.  If you've ever seen True Romance, you know that.

FTM: Be honest. How many Ed Hardy shirts do you own?

Shooter: Zero.  That's for sure.  In fact, I've ended many a friendship over Ed Hardy shirts.  Just last week some guys broke into my house and left three Ed Hardy shirts.  We were devastated. 

FTM: What is a "double-talkin', chicken-lickin', meaner-than-the-dickens, sick and wicked, hole-diggin' son of a gun?" Licking farm fowl sounds pretty unhygienic.

Shooter: You do what you have to do to survive man.  

FTM: I've read a few comments saying that "The Deed and the Dollar" is a wimpy, whipped song. I don't agree, but don't you think that if these people were married to the lovely Drea de Matteo, they'd be pretty whipped too?

Shooter: We ain't married yet!  I think that's how she's kept me so whipped all these years, by NOT marrying me.  But for god's sake man, I never understood how it was supposed to be cool to "love em and leave em".  I mean, don't get me wrong, I like waking up in a house the smells like old beer and dirty pirate socks as much as the next guy, but keeping a woman is a hell of a lot harder than keeping Barney sober enough to drive home in the morning so you can have your "youporn" time.  

FTM: Not married yet, huh? Larry Lee would not be pleased. You have another album (The Other Life) coming out this fall and you've said another will follow not too long after that. Are you in competition with Ryan Adams for who can put out the most albums before age 40?

Shooter: I never believed in cramming records down peoples throats, and I am definitely NOT as prolific as a fellow like Ryan.  With these two records, we really cut 15 songs in the original batch, so I'm only having to come up with five more.  We're almost there…  But I do think in this day and age that the two year record cycle doesn't work anymore.  People talk too much with social networking and an artist gets lost in the fold.  When we finished the record (in 15 song form), i sent it around to a few people and a good friend of mine Jay Frank told me that the move was splitting it up and doing em 6 months apart.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right as rain.  So we're putting these two out in 2012.  I think album 3 with The Triple Crown will roll thru next fall hopefully, and then after that my plan is to attack another Hierophant album (like it or hate it, bitches).

FTM: Here's another reader submitted question: What is it like to work next to Ted Russell Kamp's pants every night?

Shooter: Hahaha.  Profound.  Moving.  I miss his pants.  And his mustache.

FTM: Despite the Colt Ford song on the last tribute, I think you and your mom have done a great job maintaining and respecting Waylon's legacy, much in contrast to a certain other country legacy and family that won't be mentioned here. So, I'm guessing there won't be any Waylon boxer shorts or emo cover albums coming out any time soon?

Shooter:  No there won't.  In fact I didn't really have much to do with the tribute records.  That was really Witt Stewart and her.  But even when my dad was alive, he never went down that road.  It may have hurt his legacy in the long run, but I've finally gotten to a place where I really feel like taking on his legacy and doing the right thing.  We've got some great new shirts and stuff coming from this great company we partnered with Blood is the new Black, and I'm in talks about a Waylon movie, and I've been (slowly) revamping waylon.com.  I'm hoping to see a rise in his remembrance over the next few years.  And don't worry, the movie will be NOTHING like any biopic before.  I'm on it like flies on shit and am heavily involved in the approach and the entire concept was mine… His legacy will be protected for sure in the best way.  

FTM: You'll be playing Lucero's Family Picnic in Arkansas in May. What's your favorite picnic food?

Shooter: Beer

FTM: Mine too! Say, who could take down a fifth of Beam faster, you or your mom (Jessi Colter)?

Shooter: My mom's pretty damn badass, but bourbon ain't her thing.  She'll crush me in tequila though.

FTM: Your baby mama plays Wendy Case on my favorite show, Sons of Anarchy. How bout some spoilers for the upcoming season?

Shooter: She's coming back. That's all I can say and know.  They don't tell us anything.  

FTM: Who are some of your influences, besides your dad, Jason Aldean and Danzig?

Shooter: Haha.  It's crazy because of course as a kid I loved and listened to my dad's music, and Willie and all those guys because they were around in my life so much, but I was born in '79.  I was a MTV kid.  The first records I bought were Dire Straits 'Brothers in Arms' and G'N'R 'Use Your Illusion 1 & 2'.  When I first heard 'Broken' by Nine Inch Nails, I went nuts.  I thought it was the coolest most aggressive music ever.  I was also a computer nerd as a kid and I played piano and drums from a young age, so I saw a lot of inspiration in Trent Reznor.  Then when 'The Downward Spiral' came out, it was the coolest sounding record I'd ever heard!  Truthfully, it was the record that really inspired me to start playing music.  Then thru NIN i got into Bowie, and from Bowie the glam scene and then Beatles and Pink Floyd and then it all started snowballing from there.  It wasn't until I was about 20 that I really got into country music because I hadn't really related to the lyrics yet.  Early Hank Jr was and still is one of my biggest influences.  His music really spoke to me at a younger age (more so) than most country artists. 

FTM: Okay, after all those stupid questions, it's time for a bunch more! Here's the non-famous Lighting Round!

Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood, and why?

Shooter: Taylor.  She writes her own shit and has the edge in height.

FTM: Natty Ice or Steel Reserve?

Shooter: Natty Ice

FTM: What's the last "so bad it's good" movie you saw?

Shooter: Hobo with a Shotgun

FTM: How many times have you been arrested …that you'll admit?

Shooter: 2.  Once when I was 17 for shoplifting, and then Busted in Baylor County.

FTM: Do your kids make you watch Caillou? How awful is that show?

Shooter: I quickly got off Sprout and onto Nick.  Yo Gabba Gabba is much more my speed.  Nice Caillou reference.  I do miss the Good Night show with Nina tho.  

FTM: Are you ever going to cut your hair and move to Nashville?

Shooter: Yes.  Next week. 

FTM: "Outlaw You" is one of the better anti-Nashville songs released in recent memory. On a scale of 1 to Chris Brown, how angry does pop-country make you?

Shooter: Adam Lambert mad.

FTM: I don't even know what that means. What's your favorite Tyga song?

Shooter: Who is Tyga?

FTM: Exactly. Have you ever gone chillin' on a dirt road and swerving like you're George Jones?

Shooter: (silence)

FTM: Does Drea have any dangerous mob boss relatives who you'd best not cross?

Shooter: Yeah, her whole family.

FTM: Uh, I was kidding with that "baby mama" crack earlier. 

Next: Better late-night-drunk food: Waffle House or Krystal (White Castle)?

Shooter: Don't you (White Castle) me you fucker.  If I don't know what Krystal is, I shouldn't fucking play country music.  Krystal.  Close (to) tie tho.

FTM: Language! Okay, one serious question before I let you go. Gimme 2 albums from 2012 that we really need to hear:

Shooter: Here's three:  Fifth on the Floor's new one (shameless promotion, I produced it, but it's pretty smoking') Hellbound Glory 'MericA' (which I'm hoping to get in and produce in may) Bob Wayne 'Till The Wheels Fall Off' (Which I didn't have a thing to do with but he played for me and it's fucking amazing) and Jack White 'Blunderbuss' (cuz it's fucking rad)

FTM: Shooter, that was 4. You fail the math portion of this exam. You pass overall though, especially due to the coining of the term "double outlaw." Thanks so much for joining us today for this penetrative interview.

- - - - - -

Shooter Jennings' Family Man is available for purchase in several different packages through his website and an mp3 download is just $5.99 at Amazon.

OMG Reviews: Eli Young Band - Even If It Breaks Your Heart

by Brittany Fant, 14-year-old music fan and aspiring reviewer

Eli Young Band - Even if It Breaks Your Heart

(Listen at this link)

OMG, I don't even understand what this song is about. What is a radio dial? Is that some kind of soap? I mean, this song gives me a happy feeling and the singer has a pretty good voice, but it doesn't make any sense at all. What is a ringing guitar? Why would dreaming break your heart? Uggggghhhhhhh!!!! I think I'll just go back and listen to my sweetie, Hunter Hayes, cuz all of his songs make sense. They're about things that matter like love and breaking up and love. This song seems to be about dreaming about music or something? I just dream about Hunter and One Direction!!! Why would you stand outside of a bar to listen to music? You can just hit play on your iPod or iPad, dummy!!! Again, Eli or whatever his name is, sings pretty good and the song sounds okay but if a song is going to be so hard to understand, it better at least have a dance beat or have somebody rapping in it. He's not even that hot. Strike three, you're out LOL!

I'll be nice and give this song 2 out of 5 heart hands!

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