999,921: Dwight Yoakam — Little Ways

Little Ways - Dwight Yoakam

I used to be one of those twits who would say they liked “everything but country” when asked what music they liked. Not only does saying this make you sound like a jackass, discounting an entire genre, but it makes you sound like you are an otherwise non-discerning individual, devoid of taste.

In time, I revised that sentiment to be that I didn’t like “new country.” While that remains true, what I should have said is that I like good country, and then provided examples. Classic country, as anyone with a Time-Life collection can attest, can easily be as reprehensible and cloying as anything that Garth Brooks has churned out.

Because of my default setting for not liking any country music produced after 1975, it took until I was 30 years old to be introduced to the genius of Dwight Yoakam.

I should have known that he was the real deal when started playing such offensively awful people in independent films, but I’m a stubborn old goat. Admitting that I’ve been wrong is something that comes to me about as easily as liking any type of music my childhood barber would cut my hair to.

Yoakam is a country traditionalist, not only in songcraft, but instrumentation. His first few albums could easily be a backroom bar combo bouncing through 3-hour sets behind chicken wire for 50 bucks and steady diet of Old Milwaukee. Cans, thanks.

“Little Ways” overcomes its unfortunate ‘80s production aesthetics (check the drums, which sound like they were generated on the least-offensive Yamaha keyboard imaginable), with a drunken shuffle that breaks apart, hesitates and hiccups on the title line of the choruses, and a growling, Duane Eddy-style guitar, playing the role of a belching, drunken, lovesick fool, so besotted that the fiddle needs to finish off the solo.

Yoakam’s shame at being a big man made into a broken baby by a lovely little lady is evident in his vocal croaks and creaks. It could be my love letter to country music itself.

I can’t believe I’m admitting this in public, country music. You’ve hurt me, you’ve made me cry and I love you. I don’t know if it’s because of - or in spite of - what you do to me, just, please, keep doing it.