JTE Redux

So yesterday I just happened to be listening to the radio on my day off when they announced that Justin Townes Earle was playing a show last night, a show I had heard nothing about, which is exactly how it happened the first time I saw him last Halloween.

That would have been sign enough to get me there but coupled with the fact he was playing in my parish church, after the Friday Fish Fry I was going to attend anyway...well, I'm no theologian but if anything says "Girl, get yer ass to church" that would be it.

Though seeing someone play honky tonk in a church was a first (I noticed that Justin and his partner in crime, Cory Younts, both dressed up this time-no trucker hats in church) it makes sense. Yes, it's a progressive parish (one of the reasons I picked it) but it also makes sense, to me at least, cause music is its own kind of religion. Think about it-it's belief in something bigger than yourself, something that remains mostly unseen, something that speaks to your heart and builds its own community.

Or it least it feels that way when you get pew butt 3 songs in.

Like last time, the interplay between Justin and Cory was a delight that leavened the sorrow painstakingly chronicled in many of the songs. Yeah, I bet the road can be a drag that seems neverending but it must also be such a delight to be making music all over the world with your best friend. When they did their mandolin flavored cover of the Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait", funny enough by itself, Cory cracked Justin (and the rest of us) up with his sly sideways glance at the church's statue of Christ during the lines, "Jesus rides beside me/he never buys/and he smokes" .

Also like last time, I teared up during "Turn Out My Lights" (aka the Methadone Clinic Girl song) this time without the cover of darkness to hide them. That song just undoes me every time. Other highlights included the intro to the unflinchingly honest "Mama's Eyes" where Justin explained how his mother was Steve Earle wife #3 and "though I am absolutely my father's son more importantly, I am my mama's boy", "They Killed John Henry" (I've figured out there isn't a song about John Henry I don't like) and the lovely closing cover of Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1928".