Original release date: 8 April 2008 (Lost Highway)
You can call Trouble in Mind an alt country album, or Americana, or folk rock. But whatever genre the album gets classified in, it was 2008’s best country release by a long shot. The strength of this set of songs is three-fold.
Carll’s songwriting is unmatched – the Americana Music Association named “She Left Me for Jesus” as Song of the Year for a reason.
The production is spotless. There are instances when the music slides away and an acoustic guitar or slide or rimshot fills the moment with perfectly precision.
Finally, the diversity of this album is not a common quality of modern country albums. “Bad Liver and a Broken Heart” has the alt country rock sound of a Jason & The Scorchers tune. “I Got a Gig” has a swampy, Creedence feel to it. “A Lover Like You” opens with a ragtime piano riff and could be mistaken for a mid-‘60s Dylan track. And Carll covers Tom Waits on “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up.”
The album moves through its themes like a night of hard drinking. It starts out on the high of a good buzz with strength and confidence. As the liquor keeps going down, some thoughts of depression and nostalgia may kick in, but you still feel confident and able. In the end, you’re still longing for love and still have your sense of humor.
Download “She Left Me for Jesus” (mp3)
A Colorful Night of Drinking
He gently closed the bedroom door and diligently worked his way into the kitchen with the slow tempo precision that the hangover allowed. Not knowing why he was awake so early, he still knew what he had to do. After drinking a glass of water, he preheated the oven to 400°. He then pressed play on the kitchen boombox as the oven warmed.
Scott needed music right now – something to take his throbbing mind of its trouncing. He set the volume a little lower than normal; partly because he couldn’t handle it being too loud, but also so as to not wake up Lisa. What came through those speakers, Hayes Carll’s Trouble in Mind, could perfectly explain the evening he had and why he was making breakfast.
The pickup notes of “Drunken Poet’s Dream” initiated with the full sound of a country band. The acoustic guitar was accentuated with the slide of a steel guitar and swift strumming of a mandolin. The placement of the instruments was near perfect, down to the solid and concise bass playing. The song was about a woman who’s “wild as Rome.” She likes her western novels and her wine. The damsel’s feral demeanor, to Hayes Carll, makes her “a drunken poet’s dream.”
Scott was a photographer. He was no poet – and he was definitely not known for his eloquence – but Lisa was his dream. They’d been married for four years. This was Scott’s second marriage. He shared custody of his daughter with his first wife. The father could never leave his daughter. Lisa did not want to live in the suburbs. Because she understood the importance of being close to his daughter, his second wife made the concession. Scott thought about some of the things Lisa gave up for him as he laid the strips of bacon onto the foil-lined baking sheet.
The weekend evenings in the ‘burbs were not like the urban socializing that Lisa was used to. Every Friday and Saturday night a different neighbor drags a metal fire pit into their driveway. After dinner, there’s a fire going and the entire cul-de-sac is out. The kids play kick the can and flashlight tag while the parents gather around the flames and drink beer. This was a far cry from the diverse events and activities of the Lisa’s former city life.
The second track, “It’s a Shame,” opened with some atmospheric pedal steel and an unaffected combination of acoustic guitar strumming and picking. Then the song takes off with a galloping countrified beat. Intertwined with the great lyrical lines is a story about flirtatious interludes. The narrator calls out, “It’s a shame that we ain’t lovers.” With the longing he realizes, “But maybe it just wasn’t meant, all things have a reason/ Maybe our hearts were just too careless and free.”
By the time Scott slid the baking sheet of bacon into the oven he was reliving the reason for making Lisa’s breakfast – his obtuse moment at last night’s fire pit fest. He had too much to drink, past the level of conscious clarity, when he decided to share what his photographic mind was seeing. Sitting next to Lisa, his wife, he leaned in to one of his neighbor’s sisters.
“You… are… so,” he said slowly and deliberately, “photogenic.”
“Thank you.”
“No, I mean it. I’m a professional photographer. I don’t know if anyone ever told you this, but you could be a model. You are so photogenic.”
“Ah, no, no one’s ever told me that.” His subject stammered and blushed a little.
“Well, you are very photogenic. Your skin tone and features would look great on camera.”
Suddenly Lisa interrupted. “Scott, I’m sitting right here.”
“I know. Isn’t she photogenic?” He had the gall to nonchalantly ask his wife.
“I think you’ve had enough fun for tonight.”
“I’m not that drunk.” But he was.
“Well maybe we should just go home and get your camera.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” But they didn’t go back to the fire pit that night.
Now, the next morning, he cracked four eggs into a bowl and sprinkled pepper and Lawry’s seasoning salt – Scott’s “secret ingredient” to every dish he makes. Over the speakers came a scorching country rock song about heartbreak and defeat. “A Bad Liver and a Broken Heart” was driven by its electric guitars. The lines like “Too tried to sleep, too drunk for more” and “It’s nights like these that keep me trying/ A woman always knows when a man is lying” were recited with a Jason Ringenberg style delivery.
With both his liver and heart in mind, Scott thought back to the conversation he and Lisa had when they home last night.
“I wasn’t saying she was beautiful. I was just saying she would look good on camera.” He tried to defend his actions.
“Sure,” she emphatically yet sardonically agreed. With more disdain, she mockingly emphasized each syllable as she said, “You are so photogenic.”
It was times like those that Scott had the wisdom to be quiet. He kissed Lisa and told her he needed to pass out. He had decided that not fighting his side was more important than extending his opinion. He knew the more he argued, the more apologizing he would have to do this following morning.
After scraping the scrambled egg mixture with a spatula, he was getting the toast loaded into the toaster. “Faulkner Street” began its swinging country rhythm, like the motion of a trucker country song. The song is about looking back on the younger, partying days of the early twenties, when too many people lived in one house and drank most nights. Scott, and most of the neighbors on his cul-de-sac, did not experience that lifestyle. Scott’s daughter was born when he was 19 and that meant he instantly grew up, so to speak. Like his neighbors, he settled into these suburbs but still longed for an extension of drunken mayhem. And that’s what the weekend nights around the fire pits provided. It let everyone get drunk and stay close to their homes and children. It gave them the safest outlet to have the closest thing they could to a wild night. “Now there’s a picture on the mantle top filled with old regrets/ The things I can’t remember and the times I won’t forget.”
Scott put together the breakfast. The toast was buttered, the eggs were perfectly fluffed, and the bacon crisped for the right crunch. Perhaps because of the smell of the food, Lisa woke up and came downstairs. Scott could tell she wasn’t happy. He knew he had some work to do. As Hayes Carll’s album neared its final track, there couldn’t have been a more perfect song to be playing. The lyrics for “Willing to Love Again” illustrated the moment as the acoustic guitar ballad came through the small kitchen boombox. “I broke your heart a thousand times/ With wasted nights and rambling rounds.” “And still across my floor you stand/ Willing to love again.”
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