Every now and then after a night out, Lonesome, Onry and Mean's head feels like it's been in a fight with some guy who owns a nail gun. While we may no longer be on a regular first-name basis with morning - nor, by way of waiver, are we particularly prone to over-serving ourseves - we are, sadly, familiar with hangovers.
And we are not talking about the movie about to be foisted on us by Hollywood, which you may have heard about.
It saddens LOM to report that we had a Hank Williams moment Tuesday night, which inexplicably led to a lapse of judgment resulting in the downing of several Saison Duponts with Rocks Off Sr., followed by skinny glasses of Fernet and soda with a host of disreputable characters. [Ed. Note: All I can say is this.]
Had Charles Bukowski, Nelson Algren, Sophia Loren and Carla Bruni walked into the confab, LOM doubts anyone would have raised an eyelid unless they were offering to buy a round of the Best Procurable.
We'd set our alarm for noon in order to have our head together for an interview with Jason Isbell, maybe the sharpest crayola in the current deck of Americana songwriters who will matter 25 years from now.
LOM was quite looking forward to asking Isbell about "Tour of Duty," "Codeine" and "Heart on a String," songs from Isbell and his band the 400 Unit's new album Here We Rest that have wormed their way into our psyche (possibly to stay) but still, the alarm was not a welcome addition to our day. And then, after the alarm worked with much too much Nazi precision and we awoke to something less than a field of bluebonnets and breakfast in bed: Isbell cancelled.
Maybe he, too, had a hangover. Like Lonesome Onry and Mean, he probably deserved it.
The effects of a hard day's night aren't necessarily the most popular subjects for songs in the modern era, especially since Nashville decided the soap-buying public doesn't need to hear any more drinking songs except the ones about Mexican beaches, Corona beer, and limes.
LOM's favorite most recently penned hangover line is by Houston's own connoisseur of Coors Light, Mike Stinson, a drinkin' man who wrote this couplet of terse genius and drunkard's clarity: "Can't believe I spent all of my dough/ Just to feel this fuckin' low." Yeah, we won't be hearing that one on mainstream radio anytime soon, eternal truth though it may be.
Anyway, we scratched around inside the soreness of our head and came up with a most excellent Trees Lounge list of songs and lyrics about the morning after that any chronic sufferer should have in the musical medicine cabinet. Five of our favorites:
