When the Right Chord Strikes: Author Michael Farris Smith’s Shattering Playlist

From Ryan Bingham's music video for “Southside of Heaven”

Editor’s note: Last, but certainly not least, in this week’s debut series “The Writer’s Guide to Music” is author Michael Farris Smith (whose novel Rivers will be on my nightstand before the weekend starts). Be sure to go back and read Brian Panowich’s entry from Wednesday and David Joy’s post from Thursday. Again, if any authors, writers, or musicians are interested in submitting a post for consideration, email admin@writersbone.com or tweet us @WritersBone.—Daniel Ford

By Michael Farris Smith

Over the past five or six years music has become as much an influence on my writing life as anything. Why? Because great songs are filled with powerful imagery, emotion, and the complexities of the human spirit that we try to understand but can't. This is the same thing I do when I sit down to create story or character or scene. How real can I make it?

Great songs make it real. You feel them. You don't forget the striking lyrics, the emotional attachment. Part of my morning routine is drop off my little ones, ride around and listen to the handful of songs that are ringing in my head at the moment, come home and strum a couple, and then write. It's my favorite damn habit.

Here are 10 songs that have either stuck with me as an artist, or that have had big impacts on whatever I've been working on. Or are perfect for late nights and back roads. Or all of the above.

Martin Zellar “Ten Year Coin”

I started listening to Martin Zellar 20 years ago when he was with the Gear Daddies. This song has a lyric that stays with me just about every time I sit down to write or think about what might hide in the dark shadows of all my characters. It's so strong: "When I was younger I used to wonder what could ever bring a man to want to kill, and it scares the shit right out of me to admit that I don't have to wonder still."

Steve Earle “Goodbye”

Well, Earle is just a badass. But "Goodbye" is a stripped down song about longing, regret, the fragile nature of loss. "Goodbye" was in my head the entire manuscript of Rivers. I attached Cohen to this song and I suspect that character and novel and song will always sit together in my mind. 

Ryan Bingham “Southside of Heaven”

The coolest thing about Ryan Bingham? Two summers ago he played in Tupelo in this little bar that held about 200 people. This was right in the middle of a tour when he was playing to thousands. I thought it'd be a paired-down set, paired-down band, maybe play for about an hour. Instead, they crammed the entire band on this little stage, took shot after shot in front the audience, and ripped and roared for two hours like it was Austin City Limits. Love this song because: "When I die, Lord, won't you set my soul upon a train. Send it southbound, give some ol' blues man name."

Ben Nichols “The Last Pale Light in the West”

If you are a fan of Cormac McCarthy, and he has had a big influence on my work, then you'll dig Ben Nichols. This song comes from the same titled album, which is based on McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian. You feel the burned out landscape, burned out characters. I love this damn song late at night with only the headlights out in front.

The Civil Wars “Dust to Dust”

This is the other song that stuck in my head during Rivers. Because of this: "You've held your head up, you've fought the fight. You bear the scars, you've done your time." The song twists you up. And then the video was two lonely people wandering around Paris. The City of Light sits right beside Mississippi as the two places that have had the biggest mark on my work.

Pearl Jam “Wishlist”

I was 21 when “Ten” came out and holy shit. But I didn't let the band come and go. I've held on to Pearl Jam over the years. Last year I saw them in Memphis and kinda forgot how hard they bring it. Their songs also are full of notions of identity and individuality. "Wishlist" grabs all that. The first line: "I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off." I feel like that about every other damn day.

Sons of Bill “Joey's Arm”

I've only recently come to discover Sons of Bill and thank God I did. "When you don't fit in at church or bars, you bite your lip and you hide the scars." How could the son of a preacher not just get all tied up by that line?

Jason Isbell “Traveling Alone”

Isbell's “Southeastern” is an album I listen to over and over. Honestly, I've gotten suckered by the single like everybody else, but this album has reminded me what it means to listen to a full album, feel the themes, and really get to know an artist. "Traveling Alone" is like so much other stuff I dig. It haunts you, drains you. You feel its grasp for...something.

Drive-By Truckers “Outfit”

Bottom line is "Outfit" pretty much describes the people I know, the towns I grew up in, and the hard-working, hard-loving people I've been surrounded by my whole life. It's damn near everything I love about the South.

Drivin' N Cryin' “Straight to Hell”

Forget "Sweet Home Alabama." If you don't know "Straight to Hell" then you don't know the true Southern rock anthem. Every band I've played with, every bar I've played in, if you want everyone to get up and raise glasses, then strike up "Straight to Hell." Drivin' N Cryin' is probably the best Southern rock band you have never heard of. "She took my hand and we walked into the sun, a new day's promise had begun, we'll make it along whether you like it or not..."

Rock on.

Michael Farris Smith (Photo credit: Chris Jenkins)

To learn more about Michael Farris Smith, visit his official website, like his Facebook page, or follow him on Twitter @michael_f_smith.

For The Sake of the Goddamn Song: Author David Joy’s Drinking Playlist

Editor’s note: After you’ve recovered from the hangover brought on by David Joy’s post, be sure to go back and read Brian Panowich’s entry from Wednesday and tune in to Michael Farris Smith’s playlist on Friday. Again, if any authors, writers, or musicians are interested in submitting a post for consideration, email admin@writersbone.com or tweet us @WritersBone.—Daniel Ford

By David Joy

I’ll stand firm in by my belief that the proposal made by Writer’s Bone editor-in-chief Daniel Ford, to Brian Panowich, Michael Farris Smith, and myself, involved each of us going out and getting hammered and then coming up with a 10-song playlist amidst tossing empties from pickup windows, firing guns into the dead of night, and slurring the words to Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Up Against The Wall Redneck Mother.” However, judging by Brian and Michael’s responses, I might’ve misheard the instructions. Then again I very well might’ve been drinking when he told them to me.

Going back through the Twitter feed I reckon what we were supposed to do was to come up with 10 songs that inspire you to write, or keep drinking (me being much better at the latter than the former). In all honesty, I wish I had a song that I could listen to that’d get me in the mood to sit down and write. I wish I had some kind of organized routine, preferably one that involved a shot of bourbon and a giant gong, to kick start my lazy ass every morning, but the fact is I’m afflicted with that Raymond Carver-like fall into bad habits. “When I'm not writing, like now,” Carver said, “it's as if I've never written a word or had any desire to write.”

Drinking, on the other hand, now drinking I can do. So I stayed true to what I swear was Daniel’s original proposal, and I sat down and drank and sang myself into oblivion. So what we have here is some pour-a-tall-glass, hang-your-head-and-cry drinking music. Here’s to hoping nobody blows their brains out…

American Aquarium “Losing Side of Twenty-Five”

We’ll start this smile festival off with my life in a nutshell because I’ve been on that losing side of 25 for the past six years. This song goes out to all the pretty boys marrying pretty girls and posting pictures of their pretty kids on the Facebook every single day of our lives. Yeah, you wound up with a nice job and a nice house and you’ve still got a full head of hair, but let’s be honest, Big Cat, it’s like old Chris LeDoux said, “It ain’t the years, son, it’s the miles.” Besides, that baby of yours is ugly as hell, and we’re all sick to death of seeing him.

Sturgill Simpson “Old King Coal”

So if you ain’t on the Sturgill bandwagon by now then there probably ain’t much hope for you. I think Sturgill Simpson’s “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music” was for last year what Jason Isbell’s “Southeastern” was for the year before (likewise Chris Stapleton’s “Traveller” will be that album for 2015). But I’m pulling a song from Sturgill’s first album, “High Top Mountain,” because to date I think it’s the finest tune he’s recorded. You want to capture the sadness of the Kentucky coalfields in a nutshell, here you go:

“My great grandfather spent his days in a coal mine/his nights on the porch in a chair/Now he’s in heaven and down here in hell/the rivers run muddy and the mountains are bare.”

Drive-By Truckers “When The Pin Hits The Shell”

I can’t make a drunken playlist without at least one Drive-By Truckers song. I was torn between “Heathens,” “Outfit,” and “Goddamn Lonely Love,” but I came with this one because, well, this a tune for all us fuck ups.

“Me and you, we liked our pills and our whiskey /but you don't want your head full of either one when the house gets quiet and dark/Feeling good, it used to come so damn easy/racing trains from Second Street to Avalon/Take a trip down memory lane but you don't see no friendly faces/All the houses have been painted and nobody knows your name/It's enough to make a man not want to be nobody's daddy/Well, all he thinks he's got to lift his hand out is guilt and shame.”

The Honeycutters “Me Oh My”

Now, a lot of folks might not be familiar with The Honeycutters. They just released their third album and this tune is off of the new record by the same title. I think Amanda Platt is writing some of the finest lyrics being recorded and this just might be her at her best. If the first three lines don’t grab you by the short hairs then you can get the hell out of this conversation and go drink by yourself:

“I had a baby and the good lord took her/She was an angel but her wings were crooked/I guess he figured he could love her better than me.”

Elephant Revival “Season’s Song”

I’m going to put an Elephant Revival song on this list just because I think more people need to be listening to them. I remember feeling the same way after I heard them for the first time as I felt after hearing Cloud Cult, which is to say that they were doing something original and beautiful that didn’t really fit into any of the boxes that would have most folks paying attention. I mean they’ve got a gal with a gorgeous voice playing a crosscut saw for Christ’s sake. All that being said, I think this is one of the cleaner song’s they’ve written. So if you’re looking for any type of lightness in my playlist this’d be the one.

Josh Ritter “Lawrence, KS”

Now old Josh Ritter is definitely a writer’s songwriter. Hell, he’s even written a novel (Bright’s Passage). But this tune is one of my favorites. There’s a Steinbeck-esque, Grapes of Wrath kind of vibe about this song that I dig the hell out of, and you have to love that Nick Drake kind of soft sounding futility:

“Preacher says that when the master call us/He’s going to give us wings to fly/but my wings are made of hay and corn husks/so I can’t leave this world behind.”

Hayes Carll “Chances Are”

Hayes Carll has got a delivery that makes a man wonder if that son of a bitch couldn’t just haul off and play a show in his sleep. There’s an easiness to his voice that’ll catch a man off guard in what he’s saying. I think he’s one of the finest fellows writing music right now.

"Chances are I took the wrong turn every time I had a turn to take/I guess I broke my own heart every chance I had a heart to break/And it seems I spent my whole life wishing on the same unlucky star/But as I watch you across the barroom I wonder what my chances are."

Willy Tea Taylor “Rue The Day”

Stumbling onto Willy Tea Taylor gave me a similar feeling to the first time I ever heard Blaze Foley. There are very few people who can capture the type of sadness that Townes Van Zandt and Blaze were known for, maybe someone like Ryan Bingham comes to mind, but few other contemporaries. Willey Tea is the real fucking deal. If you’ve been there then he’s got lyrics that are going to hit home, this song being all of that in a nice three-and-a-half minute nutshell. I can sum that up in two lines:

“The bottles on the shelf know nothing about forgiveness/They’ll turn a man to sickness as he’s drowning in his shame.”

Chris Stapleton “That's the Difference Between Whiskey and You”

I said it months ago before the album dropped and I’ll say it again right now, Chris Stapleton’s “Traveller” will be the best debut album this year. We’ve had two heavy hitters come out of eastern Kentucky over the past two years with him and Sturgill, but Chris is bringing a bluesy-ness that hasn’t been present in country music in a long time. This whole album is stacked with tunes (my only beef with him being that he left “What Are You Listening To” off the album). Another one of my favorites is “Fire Away,” but I think this song will hang with me for a long time, a sentiment me and Brian Panowich share. If you want a drinking song, it doesn’t get much better than this, my friends:

“There’s a bottle on the dresser by your ring/and it’s empty so right now I don’t feel a thing/and I’ll be hurting when I wake up on the floor/but I’ll be over it by noon/That’s the difference between whiskey and you.”

Gillian Welch “I Dream A Highway”

We’ll end this here blow-your-brains-out playlist with a tune by Gillian Welch because I don’t think I’ve ever heard another woman aside from maybe Carlene Jones with the melancholic beauty of Townes. So pour those glasses tall, my friends, and polish off those bottles, because Gillian’s about to give us 14 minutes to ride this evening into oblivion.

Keep her between the ditches, my friends.

David Joy

To learn more about David Joy, check out his official website, like his Facebook page, or follow him on Twitter @DavidJoy_Author. Also check out our interview with the author and his novel’s appearance on Bruce, Bourbon, and Books.