It's been so damn cold all week. Let's turn our minds to someplace warmer ... the Beach. Yes. While enjoying the Beach, people bathe in the sun. Skin exposed to the sun turns brown, or red. Skin covered by clothes stays some shade of white, depending on the individual. The borderline between exposed and unexposed skin in the sun is a strange, but compelling, topic for a song.
The way one views a Tan Line is a function of age. For the parent, it's "did I get sunscreen there ... I sure hope she doesn't get burned ... we'll reapply when we go up for lunch ...") For the grandparent, it's a sign that the normal sun blocking protocols broke down ("Too much wind for the umbrella yesterday!"), resulting in actual exposure to UV rays and a modern Real Simple no no. For the young - those to whom a sunburn is little more than the badge of shotgunned beers and a killer day at the beach - the Tan Line is an object of .... Desire, for it marks the boundary between the un-forbidden and (possibly) forbidden.
So it is to local Athens, GA heroes, The Futurebirds. To anyone who's ever seen the 'Birds live, their view of the Tan Line, as portrayed in your Song of the Week for January 31, 2014, will come as no surprise. Any doubt as to lyricist Carter King's sentiments is removed in the first line:
"Sifting through pictures from the naked beach when all I want is you here naked here with me."
So, the focus is on the Flesh, the tone loud and longing. But for anybody with an image of a Southern indie "Sexual Healing" in mind, think again. This is the musical equivalent of breezy beach volleyball after a six pack on a late June afternoon; 18 a side, nobody cares who wins. The juvenile lust is built on a sunny day pedal steel riff that would fit in a mid-tempo Gram Parsons road trip song. After dancing around the main riff for two verses and the repetitive, "I know it's all for these tan lines" chorus, the party builds to a house-wrecking, reverb drenched, Velvet Underground meets Wilco crescendo. It's my favorite tune on 2013's excellent Baba Yaga and a perfect segue to the afternoon Beach session for young parents ... or a funnel of beer for those whose Biological Clocks are quiet. Like a frisbee, it's fun for all ages. "Tan Lines" belongs on your summer vacay playlist.
imagery [im-ij-ree, im-i-juh-ree] noun The formulation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things.
Your SOTW for 1/27/12 is chock full of it. One beautiful component of music is its ability to take us to a time or place, real or imagined. I wish I knew how many times I'd driven down the road listenting to this song and trying to see in my mind the drugstore cowboy utopia that it describes so vividly. From "Annie Rich's" parlor, to the lonley switchman by the "river bridge," to rolling praries of grain, you won't hear a better example of imagery in music. Backing vocals by Emmylou Harris give it all an angelic shimmer.
Gram Parson's story is an endearing, if tragic, one. Having grown up in Waycross, Georgia (the biggest town in the biggest county in the biggest state east of the Mississippi), he made it his mission for country and rock to become one. Blazing trails with the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds (see Sweetheart of the Rodeo), he picked up what Ry Cooder started and taught the Stones how to rock, Hank Williams style. (A fly on the wall at the "Exile" sessions at Villa Nellcote in the summer of '72 would have seen Gram there.) The Stones, in turn, gave country its proper place in the lexicon of Rock, which had been a R&B and blues dominated genre up to that point. Thus, country rock became pop. I'd submit that what we affectionately call "alt country" today would not be what it is but for Gram Parsons's dedication. He managed to kill himself with drugs and alcohol at the ripe old age of 26. The only fitting way for his story to end was for his friends to steal his body from LAX, take it to the Joshua Tree National Monument, and send him back to dust with an impromptu cremation. What he left behind endures, and I am thankful for it.
