Loretta Lynn and Northern Lights

I got a pretty good sleep last night but I think I’m coming down with a cold. Johnnie and I hung out at the pool listening to music. She told me more details about her trip to Amsterdam…sounds like a great trip. We also knocked around the idea of me joining her and her friends in Las Vegas when I leave here and she goes on R&R but I think I’ll be ready to get back to Iceland by that point…ready for 50 knot winds, sleet, and the Northern Lights. It will actually be good to get back. Sigurdur emailed me the other day and told me it was 80 degrees but I think he was joshing me.
Last night was quiet except for the celebratory fire. I don’t know what they were celebrating, getting thie butts kicked in Najaf I guess. At any rate the pink tracers flying through the air sent us to take cover because falling bullets kill.
I talked with my detailer yesterday and I think I’ll be getting orders to Whidbey Island. I’ve been stationed in Bremerton and Everett, WA in the past and I really like the area. I want to buy a house up there and actually get a dog. Thirty one years and I’ll finally buy my best friend. Really that sounds pathetic but its not. The billet opens in July but I may can slide in in May which means I’d detach from Keflavik a month early. I’m not sure what they’ll have me doing when I get back to Kef so hitting the lava trail a little early probably won’t matter.
Yesterday I got two CD’s. One was Jimmy Buffet’s License to Chill which my mother sent me. Its really good in the Jimmy Buffet way. Though I prefer his music from the 70’s when he was an angry young man casually giving the world the finger License is his best album in years. It’ll be one I keep in my truck for a long time to come. I like the whole aging, mellowing feel to the album.
At the PX I bought Revelation by Joe Nichols. I like it sort of. He’s got a good voice and there are a couple of really good songs on there, especially the classic tear-n-beer Farewell Party. But Nichols has one half of whats wrong with Nashville’s country music these days – this album gets heavy handed with religion and preaches at times. This religious kick I guess started with the roots of country music and I like those old songs and Roy Acuff too but salvation isn’t what I’m looking for in a contemporary country song. The other kick country has sold out to is the war anthem/song. Recently online I read The Nashville Scene’s YOU’RE SO NASHVILLE IF… contest. My favorite:
You’re so Nashville if you need a war to sell your records.
Toby Kieth is a clever song writer but he seems to exploit the sentiments of Americans. Daryl Worly did the same thing with Have You Forgotten. John Micheal Montgomery’s Letters From Home is actually a bit more sincere and holds up as a good song. Alan Jackson’s Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning is far and away the best country song to be inspired by September 11 and the military action which has followed. That song captures loss and devastation and I get a lump in my throat every time I hear it.
But if you really want to hear the best country album of the year pick up Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose. Its produced by Jack White of the White Stripes and I think he captures what Loretta Lynn always wanted to sound like if Owen Bradley hadn’t of got in the way. Its raw and real.