{"id":73,"date":"2009-12-23T20:28:39","date_gmt":"2009-12-24T03:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=73"},"modified":"2009-12-23T20:28:39","modified_gmt":"2009-12-24T03:28:39","slug":"song-of-the-day-snake-oil-by-steve-earle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/?p=73","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Day – “Snake Oil” by Steve Earle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I get some strange shit pop up on my iPod from time to time.\u00a0 That’s thanks to the wide variety of stuff I like, so sometimes shuffle play can be a little jarring from one song to the next.\u00a0 Today’s song<\/a> of the day is one of my favorite Steve Earl songs, from his most popular album “Copperhead Road”.<\/p>\n

The song that came on immediately after was by Too $hort, and told the story of how he and Ant Banks (not the talented keyboardist of Genesis fame, btw) had lost… ahem… “all their hos”.\u00a0 Misogyny ensued.\u00a0 Oh, that Too $hort!\u00a0 Always threatening to hit women and yelling out “BEEEATCH!!!”<\/p>\n

I don’t suppose Steve Earle and Too $hort have ever toured or recorded together.\u00a0\u00a0 That would be… odd.<\/p>\n

About as odd as Willie Nelson performing with Snoop Dogg, which has ACTUALLY FUCKING HAPPENED<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Consider your mind blown.\u00a0 Unless you already knew about that.<\/p>\n

I remember this album coming out in 1988.\u00a0 I, sadly, listened to pop music back then.\u00a0 Top 40 hits.\u00a0 Fuck you… I was 14.<\/p>\n

There was quite a lot of surprise in my adolescent mind (some parts of it are still adolescent, I believe) about hearing what I thought was “Country Music” on my beloved “AM106” top 40 radio station.\u00a0 I can’t even imagine listening to the fucking radio for music any more, but that’s another rant.<\/p>\n

I liked the song back then, but forgot about it quick.\u00a0 I soon got into Dead Kennedy’s, Suicidal Tendencies, and lots of other hardcore and punk bands.\u00a0 But my ex had this CD, along with 4 other Steve Earle CDs.\u00a0 Being a nerdy guy who likes collecting music, I figured “what the hell” and copied the CDs to cassette.\u00a0 And from those cassettes a few years ago, I got the clean sounding, Mikeified albums I enjoy in small song-by-song doses when they pop up on shuffle.<\/p>\n

I’m not a fan of Country Music.\u00a0 The only other “Country” I have on my iPod are Slim Cessna’s Auto Club… who are so fucking amazing, they could be playing DANCE music and I’d love it.<\/p>\n

I fucking hate dance music too.\u00a0 Well, most of it.\u00a0 Ladytron are fucking awesome too.<\/p>\n

See how I trick you every time into reading stuff that has nothing to do with the song I mentioned above?<\/p>\n

Speaking of that song…. at the end of it, Steve (pre-jail and probably coked up like hell… not unlike my Ex…) yells “I KNEW THERE WAS A FIRST TAKER ON THIS ALBUM SOMEWHERE!”\u00a0 Indeed, no need for a second take here.\u00a0 Remember when bands recorded songs in takes?\u00a0 Remember when they played music and recorded that, rather than whining about their fucking emotions and then splicing shit together in the studio and calling it music?<\/p>\n

Peppridge Farm does.<\/p>\n

“Snake Oil”, as I just learned from Wikipedia, is specifically about Ronald Regan.\u00a0 That’s not surprising at all.\u00a0 Every god damned politician is a snake oil salesman.<\/p>\n

I’ve got a head full of tired, and I’m out of dumb jokes… so I will now say goodnight.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow is a half day for me.\u00a0 And then 5 days off!\u00a0 ZOY!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I get some strange shit pop up on my iPod from time to time.\u00a0 That’s thanks to the wide variety of stuff I like, so sometimes shuffle play can be a little jarring from one song to the next.\u00a0 Today’s song of the day is one of my favorite Steve Earl songs, from his most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[49,50,48,47],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-day","tag-country-music","tag-dance-music","tag-my-ex","tag-steve-earle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/74"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}