Lest you get the wrong idea, I'm not a GG Allin fan. But I do find him fascinating. And, to my surprise, I finally learned that he could actually write a decent song when he tried.
After a session of Keith's class in which we talked about GG (I don't remember why), I went home and was reading up on him. Apparently, he once recorded a "serious" country album called Carnival of Excess. This I had to hear. And, thanks to the magic of the intertubes, I could.
OK, the album sucks. For the most part, anyway.
But there is one good song on it. "Outskirts of Life" is a decent confessional. The production isn't polished in any meaningful way, but that contributes to the rough feel.
The song reminds me a lot of the outlaw country music of the 1960s and 1970s, though its sound is a bit angrier. What really gets me here are some very clever turns of phrase:
- Live from state to state. Living day to day
The only paycheck that I know is what I steal today. - Listen to me closely. Do exactly what I say
Give me what I want from you or I'll take it anyway.
It's actually quite the musical treat. WHich isn't to deny that GG Allin was whack. He was totally whack. But he was also a reasonably smart guy. And he could write a decent tune when he wanted to.
UPDATE: I've listened to a bunch of covers of this on Youtube. There's a line in the song "In my world I'm living by the laws of who does who." In the video above, it starts at 2:24. That's a great line. But in the covers, everyone changes it to "...the laws of who knows who." That's not nearly as powerful a line. I wonder why everyone seems to have made the same change.
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