NEVER GONNA CHANGE

Today I'm talking about the third Jason Isbell song on The Dirty South (Drive-By Truckers), "Never Gonna Change." It starts up with a nice riff on electric guitar and some thick bass and gets into a nice groove. Lyrically, Isbell sings about the state of things in South Alabama and the kind of people there. They "ain't never gonna change, so shut your mouth and play along" and we get some high harmony in there too. There's a wailing guitar solo that careens and crashes amid the swirl of multiple guitars and the riff just chugging along underneath. It drops down to the basics as we find out "there ain't much difference in the man I wanna be and the man I really am." Then the drums come back in and off we go, riding the chorus until the end of the song. It's a great rock song, though it is immediately surpassed by Patterson's "Lookout Mountain." But what a one/two rock punch to send the album out on a highlight...until we hit the final track, which is Isbell's fourth song on the record. More on that tomorrow...

And speaking of the DBTs, if you go over to KEXP and hit the streaming archive for Tuesday (July 3) at about 5:28 PM you can hear the gang playing three new songs and "The Living Bubba." The new stuff sounds good. And if you go to about 2:58 PM the same day, you can hear Rhett and Murray doing some Old 97s tunes as well.