A Short Column About Music 12.04.08: Uncle Tupelo - No Depression Posted by Andrew Moll on 12.04.2008
I'm going where there's no Depression, to a better land that's free from care. I'll leave this world of toil and trouble. My home's in heaven, I'm going there.
Welcome again everybody to A Short Column About Music. We've reached the last month of the year and that means everybody is going to be coming out with their best-of lists and such, and I couldn't be more excited. I'm a complete sucker for this stuff. Whenever VH1 or E! put on one of those stupid "Top 100" countdowns, I'm glued to the television, and I can't explain it. I know I shouldn't care about the Greatest SNL moments, but there I am, transfixed by it. But, if you're a list and countdown lover like I am, keep an eye out for the Short Column About Music list of the best fifty or sixty-something albums of 2008.(I don't know how many I'll have listened to by the time I make the list.) That should be coming in a couple weeks, so keep an eye out for it.
Yeah, everybody loves Wilco. So do I. But Jeff Tweedy had to get his start somewhere, and that was on this album, a supremely underrated effort from an under-appreciated band. Not all debut albums can claim to have help start a genre, but this one can.
Uncle Tupelo - No Depression
Released: June 21, 1990
Tracklisting:
1. Graveyard Shift
2. That Year
3. Before I Break
4. No Depression
5. Factory Belt
6. Whiskey Bottle
7. Outdone
8. Train
9. Life Worth Livin'
10. Flatness
11. So Called Friend
12. Screen Door
13. John Hardy
Sometime around the late 1980s/early 1990s, the world of country music seemed to be making a move to a sleeker style, one that was more reminiscent of pop music. Artists like Garth Brooks aimed to place themselves squarely in the mainstream, and strayed from the edgier style of musicians like Gram Parsons. But it was around this time that young rockers began to move toward the country-sound, starting a genre called "Alt-Country." The style had actually taken shape in the 1980s, with singer-songwriters like Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams representing Midwestern sensibilities and become forerunners of a country-rock sound. Around the same time the Meat Puppets were combining country with rock, punk, and psychedelic ideas, forming a wholly unique sound. Enter Uncle Tupelo. The band formed in the late 1980s and mixed punk and rock with country and bluegrass to a form a rural sound that featured the band telling tales of Midwestern life, showing astonishing maturity for their age.
The band's main songwriters were Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, who also shared vocal duties. The duo were almost the Lennon and McCartney of the alt-country genre, with Farrar as the more serious half and Tweedy as the more optimistic half. These differences helped balance the band's 1990 debut album No Depression. The album kicks off with a bang on "Graveyard Shift." It's a great mix of punk and country with Farrar's indignation towards life giving the song its energy. He sings lines like "Well time won't wait, better open the gate/Get out and start, it needs to be done/It's winding down, there's much you miss/Working on that graveyard shift" with the passion of someone who has had to confront such a problem and doesn't want to have to face it again. The band structured the song like a classic rock song, but added a country influence to make it their own, and it's a tremendous way to open the record. The song "That Year" follows, and it's much more of a rockabilly song than the first track. It's Tweedy's tale of a relationship gone wrong, as he sings "Give me back that year, good or bad/Give me back something that I never knew I had." It's interesting to note that the lyrics for each song are somewhat melancholy, but Tweedy comes off as much more hopeful delivering his lines than Farrar does, as one could expect considering their respective approaches.
"Graveyard Shift"
On "Before I Break," Farrar continues to take on the role of the world-weary storyteller. He does so by romanticizing the problems he sees, singing "You keep saying thanks for tomorrow, 'cause I can't live/Thanks for tomorrow, 'cause I've had enough/Well, it'd do me just fine to make it through the night/On liquor I'll spend my last dime." If most of your life involves waking up half-drunk in a ditch, then you might as well make the best of it and accept it as part of life. There seems to be no celebration of this lifestyle, but no opposition to it either. The acoustic title track is next, and it's actually a cover of a gospel song from the 1930s by the Carter Family, an influential country group. Farrar does a tremendous job of making the song relevant to modern times while at the same time never losing the importance of when the song was recorded. The chorus goes, "I'm going where there's no Depression/To a better land that's free from care/I'll leave this world of toil and trouble/My home's in heaven, I'm going there." It's no surprise Farrar would want to cover this song, since it has a theme of accepting to death and trying to look forward to what's ahead, since it reflects his fatalistic tendencies. This is a simple yet stunning song in which Farrar and Tweedy do a great job of harmonizing on the chorus. "Factory Belt" sees the band going to back to the charging style, it almost sounds like Hüsker Dü doing a country song. Interestingly, Farrar shows that he's not a complete cynic, as he sings about factory life and that "after seven years of factory belt, it gets in your head" but also sings, "Looks like it's time to lay this burden down/Stop messing around/Don't want to go to the grave without a sound/Give the soul a place to rest/Not to ride on the factory belt." Even Farrar feels that there can be more to life than just work.
"No Depression"
The slide-guitar driven "Whiskey Bottle" is next and it starts off slow and quiet before building to a powerful chorus where Farrar sings "A long way from happiness/In a three-hour-away town/Whiskey bottle over Jesus/Not forever, just for now." This is Farrar observing the people around him and their trials and tribulations. It's almost a religious song, with Farrar looking upwards for answers. Towards the end of the song he sings "In between the dirt and disgust there must be/Some air to breathe and something to believe/Liquor and guns, the sign says quite plain/Somehow life goes on in a place so insane." The sound of the slide-guitars ends the song as they fade out and lead us into the next track, "Outdone." It's a pretty good track, one with a melody that may have influenced quite a few alternative bands during the 1990s. It's then followed by the Tweedy-penned "Train," which employs a Minutemen-esque start-and-stop riff. Tweedy sings "I'm twenty-one and I'm scared as hell/I quit school, I was healthy as a horse/Because of all that I'll be the first one to die in a war." The song's upbeat riff keeps lines like that from being too dramatic, as does Tweedy's delivery. But he's also able to fit in a great line, asking "Guess I have no right to say/We all die anyway/But I'd just like to know/Where does my dying go?/What for?" It's a realistic look that the questions that many young people face when they're done with school and trying to figure out what comes next.
Farrar's "Life Worth Livin'" is next, and it is one of the album's standouts. With each lyric, Farrar laments the condition of his hometown, and the people in it. He sings, "We've all had our ups and downs/It's been mostly down around here/Now this whole damn mess is becoming quite clear," before launching into the chorus where he sings "Looks like we're all looking for a life worth livin'/That's why we drink ourselves to sleep/Yeah, we're all looking for a life worth livin'/That's why we pray for our souls to keep." Farrar is mourning what he sees around him and positions himself as a spokesman for the downtrodden, a modern day Tom Joad of sorts and it's amazing how well he was able to do this. He comes across as an aged observer with a vast amount of experience in life. It's even more amazing when you realize he was only twenty-four years old when the album was released. Tweedy's "Flatness" is next and it's another solid rocker with a sense of optimism wrapped with a bit of self-doubt as he sings "I've lost all hope/But there's hope for you/If not just in the possibility/Of a better next day/If not just in the simple fact/There's no other way." Tweedy's delivery of the last line is tremendously matter-of-fact, as if one must keep hope in the face of their problems.
"Life Worth Livin'"
After another solid and driving rocker in "So Called Friend," Tweedy take center-stage on "Screen Door." It's a wistful tune about enjoying what you have and making the best of your situation. The song makes great use of both fiddle and harmonica as they enhance a great country-tinged melody as Tweedy sings "Down here, where we're at/Everybody is equally poor/Down here, we don't care/We don't care what happens outside the screen door." Tweedy is forever an optimist as he sings of everything that makes his Midwestern life enjoyable. While many of the previous songs talk about the difficulties that can be present in such a life, Tweedy is still able to find the good things about it. The album finishes up with "John Hardy", a song written by the legendary folk singer Leadbelly and it tells the story of a murderer that is caught, and he comes to terms with what he has done and says "Now I'm ready to die." It's a great mix of older country and modern rock as the band turns the volume up and brings out their punk side as they explode through the choruses. This is a good way to end the record, and sums the experience up quite well.
No Depression was the beginning of the "Alt-Country" scene and set the stage for bands like Drive-By Truckers and Whiskeytown. In fact "No Depression" became the name of a magazine dedicated to the scene, as the phrase summed all of it up quite nicely. Uncle Tupelo would release three more albums before breaking up in 1994. Farrar would form Son Volt while Tweedy would become a critical darling with Wilco, one of the most respected bands of the last decade and a half. Even though they went their separate ways, the two songwriters will be forever tied due to their work with Uncle Tupelo. Their debut album was an exciting mix of old and new, and provided a glimpse into the way some people live their lives in the factories of the Midwest. It stands as one the 1990s best albums, and stands up with anything that either Son Volt or Wilco ever recorded(Yes, even Yankee Hotel Foxtrot). Uncle Tupelo helped kick start a genre, and this great album is the one that served as the catalyst.
