Before he would sing “If We Were Vampires,” Isbell flourished Southeastern with “Stockholm,” which is very much a continuation of the quieter “Cover Me Up,” which precedes it on Southeastern. “You thought God was an architect, now you know / He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow.” In the meantime, you just try to keep your loved ones close, so you can appreciate a moment of calm while it’s here. 2. Top Songs. The highest compliment I can pay this song is that it sounds exactly like the title. On paper, it might seem maudlin, even manipulative — it’s about a woman who dies of cancer, sung from the perspective of the man who loves her. Jason Isbell is extremely good at writing songs. In short, life is hard, but it’s still life, which means it’s all we have. Here are the first 5 songs (25-21 on our list). The guy in “Cumberland Gap” — a miner who wonders if his job will one day kill him — might very well have voted for Trump. “Speed Trap Town” (from 2015’s Something More Than Free) This is one of my favorite songs on the new record. All any of us wants is to feel loved and appreciated, and for this song’s protagonist, Tupelo, Miss., is the last frontier of acceptance. “24 Frames” is about anticipatory tragedy. Like, you can’t call your song “Goddamn Lonely Love” and not deliver the emotionally wracked goods without looking like a total chump. When I listen to Southeastern, I often skip “Elephant,” because I know I simply cannot handle it. In fact, it is probably among the songs on this list that I’ve played the least. Jason Isbell. "Last of My Kind" 13. Subscribe. It’s simple, but it works like a precursor to so much of what Isbell would release going forward. He just sounds like a young person full of uncertainty, but a little hope, too. Singing the role of himself, his father or anyone working an exhaustive, dead-end job, Isbell emits nothing but truth and sweat on this one. Daisy Mae (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit song) Play Video stats: 13 : Overseas (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit song) Play Video stats: 13 : The Blue (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit song) Play Video stats: 13: 18: Heart on a String (Candi Staton cover) Play Video stats: 12 : Maybe It's Time (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit song) Play Video stats: 12: 20 Prine’s other favorite … Palmetto Rose. [Isbell married musician Shonna Tucker in 2002 – Ed].”Jason Isbell (1192) Isbell apparently closely studied this example before writing his “Trump era” album The Nashville Sound, as he steers clear of direct partisan callouts in lieu of crafting character studies about regular Americans who have been left for dead at the side of the late-capitalism highway. (It’s Isbell’s “Used Cars.”) “I was riding on my mother’s hip / She was shorter than the corn / All the years I took from her / Just by being born.” As the tragedy of that lyric sinks in, the music swells like an early ’70s Nick Drake ballad, with a breathtaking string arrangement couching Isbell’s best-recorded guitar solo. 10 Best Songs. While a list of best songs could include almost every track he’s released, here are 20 that are close to my heart. The first of Isbell’s great “Alone” songs, “Go It Alone” is also an example of the “life on the road” genre that dominates Isbell’s pre-Southeastern songwriting. Top 10 Jason Isbell Songs February 1, 2018 flcountry Country Music News 0. Tragedy can make these small hometowns feel even more insufferable. Read More: Hear John Prine's Tender 'God Only Knows,' Featuring Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires. This one is truly difficult to withstand without crying, but the visceral reactions that “Elephant” incites are why this song is so everlasting. One of the first singles from the 400 Unit’s new album Reunions, “Dreamsicle” sounds like a short story one might read in their southern lit class—in a great way. (Not Top 10) But on “Try,” the riffage is more than welcome, providing an explosive counterpoint to the simmering romantic paranoia and fitfully contained rage of the lyrics. I don’t have time for that shit.’ And my wife said, ‘You’re an idiot,’” he recently related to GQ. They saved each other. Overseas; 5. He inhabits the character in the song so fully that it feels like someone talking to you about his life from across the kitchen table. 8. A low-key strummer from Something More Than Free, “Speed Trap Town” is one of Isbell’s best narratives, unfolding like a four-minute documentary about small-town life that feels like it was carved out of a larger, extensive, unseen history. Overview / Lyrics / Photos / Videos / News. Whether she's helping husband Jason Isbell reshape ... Add dark and otherworldly to the range of feelings Shires' voice and multi-instrumental talent emotes on some of her best songs. On May 15, his discography will grow by another album, Reunions, his seventh overall. Letting You Go Even earlier than that, though, Isbell had an incredible amount of talent on his chosen instrument. 1: If We Were Vampires: 2: The Blue: 3: Hope the High Road: 4: Cumberland Gap: 5: 24 Frames: Albums. Isbell originally wrote about childhood sexual abuse on Here We Rest‘s “Daisy Mae,” but he plunged into a whole other level of darkness on this grimly hypnotic Southeastern deep cut. But “Children Of Children” is his best song of this kind, because it feels like a breakthrough in understanding that all parents essentially are children who are faking it at being grown-ups. A chance … And while there’s darkness lurking beneath this story’s haha moments, it’s ultimately a just-for-fun rock song, full of Sunday-morning regrets. MUSIC. When his producer Dave Cobb, who assembled the soundtrack, asked him, Isbell said, “‘No, Dave. Recently, I decided to rank my top 10 most gut-wrenching Jason Isbell songs, and then asked Isbell to talk about each track and his songwriting process. Today, we revisit the entire Jason Isbell catalog and share the top 10 songs written by the former Drive-By-Trucker. Why do I suddenly feel like I am drowning in a sea of my own tears? “If We Were Vampires” mourns the temporary nature of everything—especially marriage, the stronghold that was explored and praised on “Cover Me Up.” While its title may suggest some kind of corny desire to live forever with one’s partner, Twilight-style, it actually acknowledges the briefness of marriage and cherishes it all the more for its brevity. include his work together with the brilliant Drive-by Truckers. And the time before I was a raging alcoholic, and in the middle of a divorce. The couple in “Flying Over Water,” however, seem resigned to a less certain fate. The result is one of Isbell’s most ambiguous and disturbing numbers. Jason Isbell was one of three first-class songwriters in the Drive-By Truckers, along with Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, and each of them had (and has) his own spin on the kind of raucous Southern soul-country that band specialized in.When Isbell left in 2007 to pursue a solo career, there was every reason to believe he would continue in the same vein. From 3 people The line that always gets me is when Isbell sings, “And hope it isn’t me who’s left behind.” He’s choosing death over loneliness! Jason Isbell took solo credit on his breakthrough albums Southeastern (2013) and Something More Than Free (2015), while 2017's The Nashville Sound is credited to Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit.Give the album a spin and it doesn't take long to figure out why. Jason Isbell. Isbell teamed up with producer Dave Cobb for 2013’s critically acclaimed … Not exactly the most controversial statement for a music critic to make, I know. Relationships between children and parents have been an ongoing thematic concern for Isbell throughout his career, as it was for one of his primary influences, Bruce Springsteen. “Cover Me Up” is the artist at his most personal. Stipulation II: Craig Finn is the the best active rock star, and the live version of “Killer Parties” on A Positive Rage best exemplifies this. I’ve not yet found an album of his that I don’t want to frequently return to. I unfairly tend to forget about Sirens Of The Ditch, Isbell’s first solo album released in 2007, and while it’s not as deeply felt as Southeastern or Something More Than Free, it finds Isbell embracing his country roots in a way he hasn’t really since. Jason Isbell has a unique style when it comes to writing love songs, and “Flagship” is no exception. It’s all about leaving your roots and finding them again (“I got too far from my raising, I forgot where I come from / And the line between right and wrong was so fine”). In this “Speed Trap Town,” someone is faced with the constantly swarming sea of familiar faces that follows one around in a small town, but he’s also dealing with an ill parent. It’s the song he plays at every set. It’s a more hopeful sequel, in which our hero is rescued from alienation by his soulmate. This gorgeous acoustic love song, a Grammy winner in 2018 for Best Americana Roots Song, is a standout on Isbell’s Grammy winning album The Nashville Sound (Best Americana Album). (I bet Frank Sinatra would have done an amazing version.) I think that’s … I get chills every time I hear Isbell sing in his gentle roar, “Take my hand, baby we’re over land.” In the face of fear, Isbell still preaches perseverance, faith and finding strength in one another. “You thought God was an architect, now you know / He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow,” Isbell sings, later amending the verse to say, “You thought God was an architect, now you know / He’s sitting in a black car ready to go.” For a grooving rock tune, this song sure does have a lot of spiritual wisdom. "I Ran (So Far Away)" by A Flock Of Seagulls ends with an alien abduction. The musician and ace bandleader is lauded across the music industry and the country at large for his skills as a lyricist and singer. But very often his best songs aren’t the roaring rock numbers (but those are great, too—the man doesn’t really have a stinker anywhere in his discography): They’re the tender, intimate stories crafted from both real-life experiences and mined from Isbell’s overactive imagination. In 2016 we sat down with Jason Isbell ahead of a show in Bristol with his band the 400 Unit to talk songwriting. There’s real blood and guts in “Cover Me Up.” The country singer Morgan Wallen recently covered this song — his version actually comes up on Spotify before Isbell’s — but with all due respect to Wallen’s reverent take it’s impossible for me to imagine anyone other than Isbell singing it. Maybe placing this song in the top 10 is a hot take, but I can’t imagine Jason Isbell without “Tupelo,” and I find myself returning to it almost more than any other singular song of his. The new album from Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Reunions, is the most eagerly awaited Americana release of 2020, so let’s dive right in. The button-pushing anthem “White Man’s World” was among the LP’s breakout songs, tweaking the prejudices of many of his own listeners. "White Man's World" 11. What've I Done To Help; 2. Jason Isbell is widely considered to be one of the best songwriters working. Photo by Jason Earle. “Relative Easy” is Isbell’s way of acknowledging that compared to “people on a global scale,” most of us are doing OK, but that doesn’t mean that our pain is cancelled. While Isbell had become a star as Drive-By Truckers’ equivalent to George Harrison — the third-ranked songwriter who contributed a small handful of heaters to each record — he struggled at first to establish himself as a leading man. Amazon. Only Children. The title track from one of the greatest southern rock albums this side of Eat a Peach, “Decoration Day” is the tale of an ongoing family feud. It has happened at every Jason Isbell concert I’ve ever seen: Whenever he sings the line in “Cover Me Up” about how “I sobered up and I swore off that stuff / Forever this time,” everybody cheers. What happens when something terrible inevitably happens to you? Instead, Isbell produced work that still had … But in “24 Frames,” Isbell writes about the existential fear that grips all of us in our daily lives, the mundane terror that’s difficult to put into words. From 34 people 24 Frames Jason Isbell. 25. / Why did I call you? Isbell avoids this pitfall but perfectly evoking that “sitting alone on a barstool at closing time when you’ve been drinking all night for the wrong reasons” feeling. The album was well received, winning two Grammy awards for Best Americana Album and Best American Roots Song ("24 Frames"). Cultural critic Steven Hyden (@steven_hyden on Twitter) recently ranked the thirty best Jason Isbell songs for a piece in Uproxx. 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