epic 8-minute rant about Nashville<\/a>. <\/p>\nClearly he’s a huge star. But I love the performance below especially because of that thing that Mitchell and I talk about so much: artistic appreciation. When an artist looks at another artist and acknowledges that what they bring to the table is beautiful, unique, appreciated. You can see it when Judy Garland had the teenage Barbra Streisand on her show to sing a series of duets. It was Judy Garland explicitly passing a torch. And DURING those duets, Barbra will do certain things with her voice, flourishes, or a huge soaring belt, and you can SEE Judy go, “My God, this girl. This GIRL.” These moments are extremely moving to Mitchell and I and we hoard them like jewels. <\/p>\n
In the clip below, Church performs his song “That’s Damn Rock ‘n’ Roll.” and brings Lzzy Hale onstage with him, to duet with him, on guitar and vocals. His recorded version is great, and yet another “statement of intentions” from him, similar to his Nashville rant where he compares Nashville to a “devil” and a “whore”. He connects himself and the kind of music he loves to country\/rock’s earliest days, or at least sweeps away what he sees as the corporatization of contemporary country. In the song, he reiterates the anti-establishment mindset from whence it all came. None of this “butterfly kisses” goody-goody shit. (His attitude is reminiscent of Waylon’s great song “Are you Sure Old Hank Done It This Way?” – a similar critique of what the hell happened to country music, when did it become so safe? Waylon HAD to label himself an “outlaw” just to get free of all the bullshit.) Church’s stuff has a harder more metal-ish grind than a lot of contemporary country songs (he loves Metallica, AC\/DC, etc.) He doesn’t pretend to be an aw-shucks country boy, one of the “personae” that Nashville still loves. He loves his home state (North Carolina) and there’s plenty of nostalgia for a simple life and for kicking back watching football, etc., but that’s certainly not just a country thing. He’s the kind of country boy who gets in bar fights, is a hound-dog, who battles personal demons of addiction and rage (he’s open about all of those things in his songs). I mean, he’s all settled down now, married, with two sons (one is named Boone McCoy and the other one is named Tennessee Hawkins. I mean, come on. Those names are COUNTRY.) But this guy has been to the shit and back. He’s also an open pothead. He’s got a tough TRUCKER’S vibe, as opposed to a “goin’ fishin’ after church” vibe (I’m being mean to contemporary country: I know there’s a lot of other great stuff happening), and all that Utopia nonsense so common in bad country music. “That’s Damn Rock ‘n’ Roll” brings up the whole history of music, its demons, mourning Hendrix and Joplin, looking back on what it came out of: REBELLION – and re-stating what rock ‘n’ roll really is, and it’s sure as hell not something created by a corporation via T-shirts. It’s a “hip-shaking devil on a stage in Tupelo.” (Church references Elvis all the time.) <\/p>\n
In this performance on a gigantic stage, he has Lzzy Hale join him onstage. She’s not a “name.” It’s not like he has Miranda Lambert join him, or one of the other giant-esses of country music. <\/p>\n
And Lzzy Hale takes OVER. She makes Eric Church look like a backup singer. And he LOVES it. She obliterates<\/em> the original, making you realize that THIS is how the song should sound. (Similar to some of Ray Charles’ or Nina Simone’s covers.) <\/p>\nBut what I love here most of all is HIM. Watch him. Because he knows that what she’s doing is how the song sounds in his head, and he was smart enough to bring her on to pump it up a notch. She makes him work harder (and Eric Church already works hard). But watch how she winds him up, purely on the force of what she is doing. He doesn’t make the mistake of trying to compete. He’s just trying to keep up. And in the meantime: he gives the song to her, HIS song. Throughout the performance, his whole focus is on her. You can see him watching her the whole time, blown away by what she is doing. <\/p>\n
There are moments, I imagine, when even huge stars have the realization that “Holy shit, people know the lyrics that I wrote in my bedroom, and what the hell, remember when I had jack-squat in life, and now … wait, what?? this is SO COOL …” <\/p>\n
That’s what Eric Church looks like. “THIS IS SO COOL. THIS IS THE COOLEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.” He can’t BELIEVE what she is doing, and he bows to her at the end, a heartfelt gesture saying “thank you I am not worthy thank you for loving this song and doing what you just did.”<\/p>\n
Side note: I’m not ashamed to admit I “ship” these two. Because why wouldn’t I. Look at them together.<\/p>\n
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