There was a stretch, a decade or so, from the late 90s through the early 2000s when a certain swath of still-youngish evangelicals took comfort in what might be called Old-Timey music – the folk tunes and traditional songs of Appalachia and the American South. While always available somewhere on NPR, this musical tradition had slipped from mainstream sight for a spell.
Filled with religious themes and Biblical imagery, the plain-spoken songs came with an authority, a presence, that stood tall in contrast to the contemporary praise ‘n’ worship scene, the cheese-lined sing-a-longs that were the Sunday morning staples of the day.
A few things brought this sound back ’round to me and my friends, but it’s best just to blame Rick Rubin.
By propping up Johnny Cash for a last blast of recording, Rick unearthed a trove of nearly forgotten material, and redefined the Man In Black as a proto-punk troubadour on a mission from God. Johnny the prophet, our wizened leader, in whom our hopes shall be fulfilled.
It all coalesced with their cover of Hurt, a deft repackaging of the Alternative Generation’s angst as an ode to the Almighty. And it worked. I don’t think Rick would have guessed that his American Recordings would find their way into the seeker-sensitive church movements of the time, but it was good, and it was needed. And I was glad for it.
And that’s why Jason Isbell’s song “Maybe It’s Time” spun my head the way that it did. You might know it as one of Bradley Cooper’s key numbers from the film A Star Is Born. Of course, in the context of the movie, you relate the lyrics to Bradley’s struggling character. You land on the lines “It takes a lot to change a man / Hell, it takes a lot to try…” and you listen on in the expectation that Bradley will clean up his act now that he’s got Lady Gaga in his life. Tale of redemption and all that.
But if you hang out with the whole song, it takes a darker turn. It’s not about a guy and a bottle, although knowing Jason Isbell, that’s a reasonable initial assumption. Listen on, and the “Old Ways” described here, the ways that might need to surely die, are all of the things that Johnny Cash had been singing about – all of that old-time religion, all of the faith and comfort and reassurance he’d learned as a child, studying his mother’s hymn book.
In this song, Hell is here and God is laughing and nobody knows a thing. All you’ve been told? Lies and foolishness and trickery. Time to walk on, time to let it wither, let it all dry up and fade away.
And that caused me some cognitive dissonance. These words were not matching the music, not aligning with my expectations, my indoctrinations.
When I hear a I-IV-V chord progression, when I hear an acoustic guitar plucking out a strum-along song with a repeating lyric, I hear an invitation to join in and sing, to shout of hope and redemption and joy. To raise my voice in affirmation of the roll-called-up-yonder, the trees-planted-by-the-water, of how there will be no-turning-back, no-turning-back! For I-Shall-Not-Be-Moved!
So I’m not entirely comfortable with this one. It didn’t go as planned. But that unease is usually a sign that something’s worth a second look, that there’s something to it, right or wrong. And so I thought I’d give it a shake, a little rattle, spend a little time doing up a demo.
Give it a listen, if you’d like:
