Let’s face it: Everything that I am talking about, every story that you can tell in a song — it’s all been told a thousand times before. Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit was Isbell's second solo release and his first release with The 400 Unit. That song definitely came about after the election. So when I stumble up on one that expresses exactly what I want it to say while also having a solid structure, that’s when I know it’s special. But the socioeconomic situation he’s been put into . The story is not what you can throw away; the story is in reforesting culturally, trying to paint a picture of people that doesn’t at the same time destroy them, that doesn’t make them feel like they’re living wrong. And there’s really nothing more hopeful than that, having a reason to exist. Mine isn’t clinical diagnosable anxiety. There’s a lot of doors open for me as a white man that aren’t open for a lot of other people, like my wife or minorities, and it’s really obvious on an economic level. If you retrain people in those areas, it’s going to take a lot of time and infrastructure, which doesn’t seem to be of interest to the politicians. They were musicians, not by trade but by hobby. Report bad tab. There’s more of me in that narrator 20 years ago when I first started seeing the world. Inspired by his daughter and a disappointing presidential election, Americana hero reasserts his status as an ace songwriter on new album. Also contributing to the album’s pointed punch are the 400 Unit’s Sadler Vaden, Chad Gamble, Derry DeBorja and Jimbo Hart, all of them whittled into sharp shape after touring in support of Southeastern and its chart-topping follow-up, Something More Than Free. First we have to learn how to argue with each other again. The opening track on “The Nashville Sound,” “Last of My Kind,” is a good example of this, where the narrator is noticing so much. https://www.gq.com/story/jason-isbell-redemption-songs-profile . We were both raised Pentecostal. Some parts of it are hard to overcome, but in retrospect there were positives, too. It gives us a reason to write these stories or songs. “Hope the High Road”With a disappointing election behind them and an uncertain future on the horizon, Isbell and the 400 Unit mix politics with benevolence on this optimistic heartland rocker. So if you can just find perspective, that’s the key. SHOTS. If I spend time at the front of the process worrying about connecting themes, then I won’t write the best songs. Before she came along, it was kind of hard to see the whole point in life for me. That hope just accidentally found its way into my brain when she came along. It’s like we’ve been climbing a ladder and we’ve fallen a few rungs. I hope that my daughter has something she can depend on in that way. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. And you sharpen those tools the more you read. A track-by-track guide to Jason Isbell's new album 'The Nashville Sound.' His plan? How did it impact you to be around your grandparents and older people so much as a child? I’ve written a lot of songs but the thing that serves me best is my taste, I think. It Made Me Feel Invincible, Jason Isbell Makes a Connection With Livestreamed ‘Reunions’ Concert, Flashback: Watch Willie Nelson and Stephen Colbert’s ‘Little Dealer Boy’. Good storytellers use them all the time. They really lived in a different time. Download Pdf. The choices he does have are that he can cash his check and get drunk from that money, he can leave town or stay there with his mother. I can tell you about individual songs, but if I sit here and tell you the themes, I think that undermines the whole process. I wrote “Something to Love” about that and it turned out very hopeful. “But at this point, we’re all so interconnected it’s kind of like we all live in one huge city. It was the time before my life had gotten fucked up. Want more Rolling Stone? It occurred to me that possibly the best way is to approach this with self-respect and human dignity. “Molotov”Caught halfway between Tom Petty’s poppy punch, Bruce Springsteen’s anthemic nostalgia and R.E.M.’s ringing guitars, “Molotov” takes a look backward, setting its scene “in the year of the tiger, 19something.” “I hope you still see fire inside of me,” Isbell sings to a former flame, seconds after rhyming “three wishes” with “being facetious.” Well played. I don’t think we’ve fallen all the way, but we have fallen. I think a big part of the problem is that we’ve gotten so caught up in the issue, so caught up in the fight between one type of American and another type of American that we forgot the rules of the game, the rules of civilized discourse. No progress gets made. I wanted it to be about more than just typical run-of-the-mill anxieties like I have. On a good day I feel like my senses are heightened. Do you think the birth of your daughter is one reason this album has such a hopeful and positive tone in some of its songs, especially “Something to Love” and “Hope the High Road?”. It’s a constant effort for me to allow it all to be OK. So in that song I’m trying to figure out my own role. He’d be disposed of. I like watching that. I think this mass media culture is going to take every possibility for exploitation, and in doing so everything becomes disposable. You do a great job of articulating the feeling of anxiety in one of the more rocking songs, “Anxiety.”. I have day-to-day worry. I think the best thing we could do at this point is try to restore civility, try to go back to the point where we’re debating rather than yelling at each other. There are choices for me that aren’t choices for someone making $18,000 a year and sure as hell not choices for those who are making less than that. I’ve got an 18-year-old cousin who doesn’t fall for that shit. Probably so. That’s the beauty of making an album. That’s the only thing we have an infinite supply of, perspective. I feel bad that we elected a person who had no concern for civility or dignity or self-respect whatsoever. I don’t fight it, but I do sometimes feel uncomfortable in a world that’s so interconnected. “If We Were Vampires”The Nashville Sound‘s stunning standout, “If We Were Vampires” shatters the love song’s familiar mold, focusing not on the never-ending power of Isbell’s affection for Shires, but the pair’s limited time together. You just recognize it as something that moves the story. I have a great family. Eventually I think we’ll get to the point where the majority of social-media users can recognize what is bullshit. You always have something to write about, and you have these biblical references, which is basically like a collection of things we all have in common. If you’re going to write, you’re going to have to force yourself to really study the world. A lot of songwriters miss that and don’t see the connection there, and I’ve always felt like you’re more able to communicate if you have a bigger toolbox to work with. The anger is pointed and palpable here, hitting a high mark during the song’s solo section, where Isbell’s electric guitar and Amanda Shires’ fiddle chase each other in fuming circles. They weren’t just the older generation; they were really sort of from a different time. Silas House is the nationally bestselling author of six novels. Clean and clear-eyed for the first time in years, he moved into a townhouse with Amanda Shires. But it is possible to get it horribly wrong, like when people are using “Born in the U.S.A.” as a rabble-rousing patriotic anthem. I feel like a lot of folks are being lied to. Also, this is my favorite song of the album, which says a lot. It’s been five years since Jason Isbell left Alabama and moved to Nashville, still reeling from the wilder, wetter days that had nearly derailed his solo career.