EVER FEEL LIKE YOU CAN'T MAKE IT HERE ANYMORE? YOU MIGHT NEED A DOSE OF JAMES McMURTRY

And speaking of John Mellencamp... A decade and a half ago one of my friends, Steve, was working at SONY and he was all excited about a "new artist" they had signed named James McMurtry. He gave me the idea it was country and well... SONY's country division doesn't exactly come up with artists like Steve Earle. I didn't really pay attention. I'm kicking myself now. SONY's country division had indeed come up with some like Steve Earle-- crossed with Neil Young! Mellencamp produced TOO LONG IN THE WASTELAND, McMurtry's 1989 debut album. (He later joined Mellencamp, Dwight Yoakam, John Prine and Joe Ely is a Wilburys kind of thing called Buzzin' Cousins.) He's had half a dozen albums since then, more roots of rock than country if you need a category, and the latest, CHILDISH THINGS, totally kicks ass-- George Bush's.

Born in Texas and raised in Virginia, James is the son of author Larry McMurtry (best known for Lonesome Dove, for books made into movies like Hud, The Last Picture Show and Terms of Endearment and for doing the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain).

Scott turned me on to this song from CHILDISH THINGS and he's got the lyrics up at Sheer Golden Hooks. No song I've ever heard better encompasses the Age of Bush than "We Can't Make Here Anymore." This homemade video clip ends with some optimism. McMurtry's song doesn't. He covers Bush's dismal lack of support for military veterans, the Bush-Clinton policies of globalization that have made the rich much richer and have devastated American workers, drug abuse, bankruptcy, the minimum wage scandal, escapism, the chipping away at a woman's right to choice, Walmart, racism, Iraq, political whores selling us out... and everything else we've been writing about at DWT for the last couple of years.





UPDATE: BERNIE SANDERS IS NOT JUST THE BEST CONGRESSMAN, HE ALSO HAS THE BEST TASTE IN MUSIC

If you'd have to pick out one member of Congress who is the furthest away from being a corporate whore and who serves his constituents' interests above all others, it would have to be Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Now that he is making a bid for the U.S. Senate, Bernie has adopted "We Can't Make it Here" as his campaign song. "Whether you’re a veteran, a worker who has lost a job due to outsourcing, or a young mother trying to get by, this song tells it like it is. How refreshing to have an artist connect with the realities facing working folks. Thank you James."