Drive by Truckers: The Fine Print: A Collection of Oddities and Rarities

 Drive by Truckers: The Fine Print: A Collection of Oddities and Rarities

2009

New West Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues  2. Rebels  3. Uncle Frank  4. TVA  5. Goode's Field Road  6. The Great Car Dealer War  7. Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill A Chicken)  8. When The Well Runs Dry  9. Mrs. Claus' Kimono  10. Play It All Night Long  11. Little Pony And The Great Big Horse  12. Like A Rolling Stone


 Somehow I lost touch with the Drive by Truckers for awhile...I still loved their music and listened to "Southern Rock Opera" and "Decoration Day" but it was kind of like liver pate'...Their albums are so rich that a little goes a long way (that's right....I basically just called DBT "chopped liver")...I plain ol' wasn't done listening to those two albums and by the time I was ready for some new DBT three albums had passed and their lineup had shifted considerably...

I don't know why I chose a collection of outtakes and compilation tracks as a returning point...It seemed like it might be a decent overview of what I had missed and what the different line-ups sounded like...And it is good...

 One-third of it consists of cover songs which range from ass-blastingly awesome to okay-ish... In the ass-blastingly awesome category we have their version of Warren Zevon's "Play it All Night Long" that, although it was recorded a little later,  would have sounded great on Southern Rock Opera...It would have fit so perfectly:

"'Sweet home Alabama,'
Play that dead band's song
Turn those speakers up full blast,
Play it all night long..."

I'm tempted to sequence myself an alternate version of "S.R.O" that cuts out the Rob Malone songs and uses this one instead...It might even put it ahead of "Decoration Day" at that point...

The other killer cover is Tom Petty's "Rebels" which fits the band so perfectly that I had no idea it was a cover until I read the liner notes...I remember liking Tom Petty as a kid (the video's for "Don't Come Around Here No More" and "Running Down a Dream" probably had a lot to do with that), but during the 90's I grew to deeply despise Tom Petty...

To this day, "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and "You Don't Know How it Feels" make me want to puke...But "Rebels" almost makes me want to check out some of his older stuff...Did he write other songs this good?

In the okay-ish cover category we have Tom T Hall's Vietnam-era oldie "Mama Bake a Pie (Daddy Kill A Chicken)"...I can imagine that someone who is more into more straight-up, non-alt-country or war-time dramas might get more out of this than I do...The repetitive melody kind of drives me nuts after awhile but the story somewhat holds my interest, so I'm throwing it in the okay-ish pile... It does make me hungry for chicken and pie, though...

The Bob Dylan cover is a real skipper...The band pretty much admits in the liner notes that it's impossible and pointless to cover "Like a Rolling Stone," and I agree...It's the most Dylan-ish Dylan song and as you listen to their version it's impossible to not just wish you were listening to the original instead...They do make it somewhat interesting by giving each verse to a different vocalist...Eh, I usually just stop listening to the album after "Little Pony...."...

The other 2/3rds of the track listing consists of alternate versions of previously released tracks and outtakes....In the alternate version category we have "Uncle Frank" and "Goode's Field Road," both of which I've never heard the original versions...I should check those out on Spotify real quick so I can do some comparing and contrasting...

"Hello, Kristy...It's Uncle Frank...Come to daddy!"

Uncle Frank: Both versions sound very similar, except the "Fine Print" version is a bit more guitar-heavy than the "Pizza Deliverance" take...Too close to call...Both versions are good...

Goode's Field Road:  No contest...The alternate version is much better...Faster and rocking-er...The "Brighter Than Creation's Dark" version is smoother and sluttier, if that makes sense...

The rest of the album is outtakes from "The Dirty South" and "A Blessing and a Curse" (but mostly from "The Dirty South")...I can see why some of them would be outtakes...Some are overly jokey like the Holiday song "Mrs. Claus' Kimono" (that I realized I forgot to put on my list of Christmas songs last year about a day after I posted it, but maybe I'll do a new list of Christmas songs this year)...It's pretty funny to hear DBT give Santa their usual Southern Gothic, murder-ballad treatment...And the parts about filling up the toy sack with heroin and Santa getting it on with a female reindeer always crack me up...Alright, I'm declaring this my official Christmas song for the 2014 season...Cooley's "Little Pony and Great Big Horse" and Patterson's "George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues" were also probably both a little too wacky or weird to go on one of their proper albums despite being good songs...

However, I have no idea why the two Jason Isbell songs never appeared on any album...I've never heard the "Dirty South," so who knows...Maybe it's the most amazing album ever made and these two songs would have been obvious low-points but I seriously doubt it..."TVA" is a delicate little acoustic ballad that's a nice counterpoint to "Uncle Frank" where the song's narrator thanks God for the Tennessee Valley Authority as opposed to "Uncle Frank" where it ultimately leads to Uncle Frank's suicide...Apparently "TVA" and the alternate version of "Uncle Frank" were intended for a scrapped single...Holy shit, would that single have ruled the world...

"The Great Car Dealer War" is a quintessential, detail-heavy Patterson Hood story-song that sets an elaborate crime drama against smoldering country rock...It slipped past me the first few listens but it eventually sunk in and now it's one of my favorites on the album, coming in just behind Jason Isbell's "When the Well Runs Dry"...

I guess ultimately this worked...I haven't missed a single DBT album since (although there's quite a few I should go back and check out at this point)...I wouldn't recommend this as your first DBT album, but I think established DBT fans would find this interesting...

Let's check out "When the Well Runs Dry" by the Drive by Truckers...Enjoy...