Getting Messy

Dr. Dog - Ain't it Strange
from We All Belong

Having lived in Germany for a time a few years back, there is a handful of conventional practices that I feel are missing from the North American lifestyle. Daily trips to the bakery, beers on the subway, wildly inventive herbal remedies, and the prevalence of drinking songs. It constantly amazed me how people of all ages and genders would so eagerly throw themselves into a rousing bar-wide rendition of John Denver's "Country Road" on a special occasion. Over and over again. It was very inspiring, actually, except for the John Denver part.

Likely the closest thing we have to common and popular drinking songs on this side of the pond is bar rock. Case in point: The Hold Steady. People -- that is, people who are drinking and into the idea of a bunch of people drinking together, and can find a bit of romanticism in the whole thing -- want to embrace that feeling of drowning one's sorrows, and they find something comforting in the group experience offered by bar rock's sheepish pathos. We just don't want to have to actually sing ourselves.

I propose that we start implementing drinking songs into standard North American life. Simple songs with a certain rambling, shameless, wryly melancholic sort of feel to them. Sub-proposal: the drinking songs will be taught to early adopters by bands who go around running drunken sing-alongs where everyone gets up on stage and has their arms around each other. And lots of whiskey.

This entire proposition has been drawn out of me by my recent minor obsession with a certain shambling ditty by these Philly boys that call themselves Dr. Dog. Ain't it Strange is a melancholy song filled with the warm hiss of a damp campfire and the rattly strings of a hobo guitar. With lyrics that are crisply and expertly universal, drawn straight from the frustration of mundanity and heartache, it's tough to avoid getting caught up and joining in on certain verses: "Ain't it strange / How a man who lives for nothin' can change / 'Cause if he stays the same he'll die a million days". The song is the perfect wry smile and a shared and knowing look. It's the good kind of messy, which is something that even good pop music rarely achieves. Cheers, Doc.

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