Song Of The Day 3/2/2015: Anna Fermin's Trigger Gospel - "The Box It Came In"

Actual Country Week: A few weeks ago some inspired gent (or gents) going by the handle Gosteffects posted a video to his (or their) Facebook page. They took six contemporary country songs with similar chord patterns and lyrical strains and mixed them into one single song on Pro Tools. This was an inspired act of counter-programming against current mainstream country which, I’ve noticed for the past ten years or so, have been relying heavily on some of the exact same chords and patterns. Not just chord progressions – the actual notes themselves. You would think somebody in Nashville would have woken up to this reality by now. I mean, sure, country – not to mention blues, rock and Gregorian chants – uses a few fairly reliable templates to make up the majority of their songs. But this is ridiculous.

I’ve also noticed there’s not much happening in these new country songs. Nobody’s breaking up or getting shot. A few of them are drinking whiskey, I suppose, but their tours are all being sponsored by beers I could read the Federalist Papers through. Generally everyone’s gotten content just riding down the highway in a truck and seeing at least a glimpse of their girl’s bronzed thigh, and that’s the kind of fodder we’re getting in country these days. All this made me hungry for some country artists who aren’t basking in the LED lights of Nashville, doing songs that have what country music of the past has always had, but these days sounds like nerve.

So that’s what you get this week. The types of songs that made country great. Starting with Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel from up Chicago way, covering a Wanda Jackson song about a busted marital engagement. It’s searing, it’s heart-rending, and if everything goes according to plan somebody’s gonna die. There, I feel better already.