Drive-By Truckers - Decoration Day - Writeup
Comments by Patterson Hood and Jason Isbell

Decoration Day is the day many southern churches set aside to place flowers on the graves of their departed loved ones. Drive-By Truckers have used this as the title for their New West Records release.

Recorded at Chase Park Transduction Studios, Athens, Ga. by David Barbe (Sugar, Son Volt, The Glands). The album was recorded mostly live in the studio over a two-week period. The fifteen songs reflect a two-year period of turmoil that the band had gone through surrounding the making of their critically acclaimed 2000 release Southern Rock Opera. Decoration Day more or less became an album about choices, good and bad, right and wrong, and the consequences of those choices.

The songs come from some dark times. The band had spent several years on the road, recording four albums between tours, and often leaving loved ones back home, to deal with all kinds of financial hardships alone. The same period also saw the passing of several loved ones (some by natural causes, and some not). Eventually the turmoil began to take its toll on the band itself.

Despite the dark nature of most of the songs, the album was a blast to record. New guitarist Jason Isbell joined the band about a year earlier and contributes two amazing songs, including the title cut. Everyone involved seems to have come out the other end of all the previous turmoil. David Barbe rolled the tape, capturing the band in its finest form ever. Seven of the songs were first takes (with about five second takes), yet for the first time, the band had the luxury of spending a little more time on the details.

The following is a song-by-song commentary written by Patterson Hood and Jason Isbell.

1. The Deeper In

Patterson: This song is about the only two people currently serving time in America for consensual brother/sister incest. It is one of the few songs I've written in the third person. Jason plays an electric mandolin through one of Barbe's old Ampeg Gemini amps. The song also marks the return of pedal steel player John Neff, who played on our first two albums and appears on nearly half of this one.

2. Sink Hole

Patterson: "The Accountant", a short film by Ray McKinnon, inspired this song.
The film is a very dark comedy about saving the family farm "by any means necessary".
This incredible movie went on to win the 2002 Academy Award for Best Feature Short.
We recorded Sink Hole live in one take our first day in the studio.

The song itself tells a different story and utilizes the geography of my family's old homestead in North Alabama. At the foot of the McGee Town hill lays an actual thirty-foot deep sinkhole. In the end, the protagonist feels morally justified as he fantasizes about burying the foreclosing banker there.

3. Hell No, I Ain't Happy

Patterson: This song was written on the road in January 2002 (although the title dates back to a year earlier). One night in Northern Florida, we passed a car driving the wrong way down I-10 At the time we were deep into the recording of "Southern Rock Opera", which dealt with dying on the road. This near brush with fate helped me to get past my phobia of getting creamed on the highway.

4. Marry Me

5. My Sweet Annette

Patterson: Two very different views of marital bliss.
With Marry Me, Cooley has written my favorite line on the album:
"Rock and Roll means well but it can't help tellin' young boys lies".
Both benefit from the great harmony vocal talents of our good friend Clay Leverett. Centro-Matic's piano player, Scott Danborn played fiddle on My Sweet Annette.

6. Outfit

Jason: This one focuses on the advice I got growing up, mostly from my father. We recorded the song just before Father's Day and I gave Dad a copy as a present.
I'm really fond of Cooley's psycho solo and Patterson's guitar harmonies toward the end.

7. Heathens

Patterson: This song and Sounds Better in the Song provide the center of gravity for this album.
Heathens was originally to be the title track and it's probably the strongest of the songs that I wrote for this record.
I particularly love the interplay between Cooley's almost Eddie Hinton-esque guitar part juxtaposed against my original chord progression.
Jason put down two tracks of E-Bow guitar, John Neff again plays pedal steel and Scott Danborn again plays fiddle.
"She ain't revved till the rods are thrown".

8. Sounds Better in the Song

"I might as well of put that ring on her finger
from the window of a van as it drove away" - Mike Cooley

9. (Something's Got to) Give Pretty Soon

10. Your Daddy Hates Me

Patterson: Two more songs about divorce and the emotional fallout that follows.

11. Careless

Patterson: This song was written in 1996, following the accidental death of a good friend

12. When the Pin Hits the Shell

13. Do It Yourself

Patterson: Mine and Cooley's somewhat different take on another friend's not-so accidental death.
When the Pin Hits the Shell features veteran keyboardist Spooner Oldham (Aretha Franklin, Neil Young, Bob Dylan) playing what he referred to as his "Star Wars Solo" on the Wurlitzer.
Both of these songs were first takes.
Do It Yourself features a guest appearance from Bob Spires of Athens GA's incomparable band, The Possibilities.

14. Decoration Day

Jason: This was the first song I wrote after joining the band, and it uses a fictional protagonist to tell a story that's rumored to be true. If a fight goes on long enough, it can be impossible to remember who started it.
I really love the coda. Barbe and the boys turned it into a tornado.

15. Loaded Gun in the Closet

Patterson: Cooley played this song for me a while back and it just had to be the last cut on the record. On an album about choices, it is noteworthy that the gun "stays" in the closet and everyone lives to carry on another day. Seconds after finishing this first take, my Gibson J-40 fell off the stand and broke in two.

Turn it up LOUD!
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