What is the quintessential alt-country song?

"Whiskey Bottle" as well, natch.

Maybe "Faithless Street," which namechecks Jesus and pretty much tells the early alt-country story straight: "I started this damn country band/cause punk rock was too hard to sing."

Anything by '90s Lucinda Williams.

Red herring alert! Alt-country = album genre, man.

Steve Earle - "Someday"

Meets pretty much all the above criteria: twangy vocals (not "weatherbeaten," but lots of Texas sass), twangy guitar, she left a handsome two-steppin' good ol' boy back in Tennessee, now she's headin' out across the state line with a guitar in the backseat and Lorretta Lynn on the radio.

I love that song.

Some kind of saviour, singing the blues,
A derelict in your duct tape shoes.
Your orphan clothes and your long dark hair,
Looking like you didn't care,
Drunken angel.

Blood spilled out from the hole in your heart,
Over the strings of your guitar.
Worn down places in the wood,
The ones that made you feel so good,
Drunken angel

this was my first thought....

And what would that be? Probably "Return of the Grievous Angel" or "$1000 Wedding" or maybe even "Wheels," since it's about rolling on and all that.

Actually, the new Laura Cantrell record is mighty fine alt-country--she's incredibly even-handed, smart, and the last cut, "Old Downtown," about walking around in Nashville, and President James K. Polk, is one of the best things I've heard, in this vein, in a while.

Will soulseek it...

or:
"Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight" - Whiskeytown
"California Stars" - Billy Bragg & Wilco
"Working Late" - Lone Justice
"Portland, Oregon" - Loretta Lynn

artists from other genres goin' alt country:
"Multiply The Heartaches" - Cake
"Cheatin'" - Gin Blossoms

If you are going to insist that 70s stuff is alt-country, then probably the quintessential -- and most influential -- song is "Wild Horses" by the Rolling Stones. Other nominees: Eagles, "Peaceful Easy Feeling" (or pretty much anything on their first few albums), Neil Young, "Old Man" or "Country Girl" (or anything on Harvest), Grateful Dead, "Uncle John's Band, Poco, "Pick Up The Pieces, Gram Parsons, "Hickory Wind" (or just about anything), Willie Nelson, "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" (or anything from Red-Headed Stranger), Bob Dylan, "Lay Lady Lay".

Then there's the 80's stuff: X, the Cramps, Stray Cats (and, really, The Pogues) on one side, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash 1.0, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle 1.0, Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakam on the other, and John Mellencamp and Lone Justice in the middle.

Real alt-country: "Windfall" is a pretty conventional choice, except it's so conventional that it really doesn't convey sufficient "alt"-ness. I'd nominate Jayhawks, "Waiting For The Sun", Cowboy Junkies, "Sweet Jane", "Whiskey Bottle", Lucinda Williams, "Too Cool To Be Forgotten" (or "Drunken Angel"), Kim Richey, "I'm Alright". A lot to be said for that one line in "Faithless Street," too. But for the song that best embodies the genre in all its ambivalence, I would split the prize between what are essentially two versions of the same idea: Wilco, "Misunderstood", and Whiskeytown, "Inn Town". Not the best song of either band, but pretty good embodiments of that alt-country mood.

that or "16 Days"

The Stray Cats? Huh? MTV rockabilly. The Cramps? They don't play country music, and again, they don't even know how. Roseanne Cash is great, but pretty much any record made for a big label in Nashville isn't alt-country. Yoakam's stuff is pure Bakersfield country music--I guess it qualifies, sort of. Anyway, the thing is, Dwight Yoakam is better than almost any of the alt-country people. His records sound better and he's truer to the spirit of country music than the fuckin' Jayhawks or Uncle Tupelo or any of them guys. Or Lucinda Williams, who I think is one of the most overrated artists ever, I never did get why people thought she was the "greatest record-maker of the age" like Christgau seems to think. So forgive me--I just am not taken with alt-country, it has its moments, but I think you could listen to the Burrito Brothers and to Gram Parsons and you'd be just fine when it comes to alt-country. Just like if you've heard the Raspberries or Big Star, you've heard power-pop.

Huh?

My heart of hearts wants to name those songs like "Whiskey Bottle" or "Drank Like A River" that most explicitly articulate the 'Mats/Husker Du/Parsons synthesis.

While on any given day "Come Pick Me Up" may be my fave Ryan Adams track and "16 Days" may be my fave Whiskeytown, I can't squeeze as much "explain me" out of them. "16 Days" does offer one of the great lyrics of the genre though:

I got 16 days
Got a bible and a rosary
God I wish that you were close to me
Guess I owe you an apology

So obvious, so OTM. Not bad for, like, a n-n-nineteen-year-old kid.

Vornado - genius call on the Pogues, esp. given the family tree of American "country" music, though it begs an uncomfortable question about where to draw the line between alt-country and folk-rock.

I'm not so sure about this. Parsons' "cosmic american music" assembled elements of country, rock, and soul into a template that later artists would pick up, but it's impossible for me to think of "alt-country" absent the context of increasingly sophisticated, glossy, and rock-influenced Nashville product one the one hand and the post-punk era on the other.

Even if the artists name-checked on this thread had done nothing but faithful Parsons and Townes Van Zandt covers, it would have meant something quite different, no? cf. Borges, Pierre Menard and Don Quixote.

This might be true if you were already very sophisticated in your understanding of pop genres and their history. But there's nothing in Gram Parsons or the Burritos that anticipates, say, the dynamics, or the moral outrage, of "Whiskey Bottle."

PS - I hear you on power pop, but I'd be heartbroken to lose some of those Badfinger tracks, let alone Teh New Pr0nographers (where alt-country and power pop meet!)

(And I know, Dylan's not "alt-country," but there's no way he doesn't fit on a No Depression list.)

rogermexico sed:

it's impossible for me to think of "alt-country" absent the context of increasingly sophisticated, glossy, and rock-influenced Nashville product one the one hand and the post-punk era on the other.

The other major strain is the "outlaw" school -- Willie, Waylon, Kristofferson, etc., those guys are all major influences for whatever alt-country is/was/will be. (Steve Earle being the most obvious descendant.)

I hear ya, I hear ya. but the thing to remember is that you *already* had a "Nashville alternative" in the '60s--the Bakersfield sound, which is the basis for "Gilded Palace of Sin."
I don't get the comment about moral outrage and Gram Parsons, either. His music is all about moral outrage, from that goddamned luxury liner to the gold-plated door to the wedding that didn't quite work out to taking bad advice on sailing around the world. I mean it seems to arise out of some experience that I can totally relate to--things ain't never gonna work out and I can't quite bring myself to say fuck it, because I care too much. So the whole miserable experience is hidden in the narrative aspect of Gram Parsons's art.

That's totally fair. I was struggling for the right way to express this, and I still haven't quite got it, but there's something... detached? about the way Parsons burns down his missions. I want to be careful, since it would be easy to say "oh yeah well divinity school blah blah," but there is something... found about the lord's burning rain, love it as I might. Whereas "whiskey bottle over Jesus" hits with an immediacy that I (prolly wrongly) attribute to the punk/hardcore influence.

gypsy mothra otm as ever. I do hope Deliverance made that list...

As far as the quintessential song, I would go with Robbie Fulk's "She took a lot of pills (and died)"

just think about it

somebody asked me 'what is alt country' so i made this mix:

sound of the city - lucero
i got drunk - uncle tupelo
elvis decanter - the vandals
range life - pavement (yes i did this fuiud)
heavy metal drummer - wilco
once over twice - x
gone gone gone - robert plant & allison krauss
open all night - springsteen
jacksonville skyline - whiskeytown
we'll sweep out the ashes - gram parsons
drunken angel - lucinda
but i've got texas - jon wayne
the poet - ryan bingham
the once over twice - x
if only you were lonely - the replacements

hm wait i only put on x once

Funny that this came up. I recently uploaded all the CDs that I still had around the house and got serious lols at the "Country" iTunes genre label for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I think earlier Wilco is definitely alt-country, but I just can't hear it in YHF.

Note: I'm not one of those nerds caught up in the YHF backlash. I think it's a fine record - just not too country.

wot no lambchop itt?

i am TOTALLY one of those nerds caught up in the YHF backlash. THOROUGHLY caught up in it! so entangled!

wait what's YHF

the answer is obviously 'black metal valentine' by califone

and less obviously, modest mouse + califone's cover of "south of heaven"

once over twice - x

The Wild Gift version? Cause that's not very alt country.

"Drunken Poet's Dream" by Hayes Carll and/or Randy Wylie Hubbard

The Volebeats and The Vulgar Boatmen

"jesus etc" is arguably alt-countryish, but yeah, not hearing much of that sound on YHF otherwise. however the rest of Wilco's catalog is chock-a-block with the stuff, insofar as it is a real category. i second the nomination of "California Stars" by someone in this thread five years ago.

clearly the quintessential alt-country song should be that Ryan Adams song that Tim McGraw covered for optimal WE BEAT YOU AT YOUR OWN GAME, NASHVILLE MACHINERY smugness

it's gotta be "blue" by the jayhawks, if not uncle tupelo's "acuff rose"

love "blue" to death (and that whole album), but not sure if it makes the mark for quintessential.

gotta be something off Son Volt's "trace" though imo. "windfall" or "tear-stained eye."

kinda nostalgic for my alt-country phase, tbh.

"when the stars go blue" is the kind of straight-up great song that keeps me paying attention to Ryan Adams just in case, but not exactly quintessential alt-country.

Something by Kathleen Edwards