Horror Blogs > TheCabinet.com Blog > Track of the Day - 8/29/2007

TheCabinet.com Blog - By TheCabinet

Track of the Day - 8/29/2007
Your Rating: Sign in to add your rating
Average Rating: 0 (0 ratings)
Robert Earl Keen - Whenever Kindness Fails Listen to Whenever Kindness Fail on Rhapsody There must be something in the water in Texas.  For some reason, the horror industry seems to have a lot of personalities, in all of its mediums that come from Texas.  Even more interesting, they tend to walk their own path.  In the literature world, there is the offbeat writer Joe Lansdale.  In movies, Tobe Hooper not only came from Texas but also filmed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Music is no exception.  There are a plethora of musicians that delve into the dark side with their music. Robert Earl Keen was born and raised in Texas, so it is not much of a surprise that he fits better in the Texas Country movement than the Nashville one.  Texas Country is pretty much synonymous with Outlaw Country these days.  After all, one of the founding fathers of Outlaw Country was Texas-native, Waylon Jennings, who left the state for a short time, only to return after he struggled with the Nashville scene.  Texas/Outlaw Country tends to be a little darker than its cousin to the East and probes more into our territory from time to time. Keen attended Texas A&M University where he picked up the guitar and strummed along with his neighbor, who just happened to be Lyle Lovett.  He reportedly didn't care for the college music scene and instead based his own music around country, folk, rock and blues.  After he graduated and took a job at a newspaper, it wasn't long before he started playing his music live and gathered a following.  His first LP release came in 1989 with West Textures and he has been at it ever since. Whenever Kindness Fails was part of Keen's real breakthrough album, A Bigger Piece of the Skyin 1993.  Like several of his songs, the story has got the real "gunslinger" feel and follows a man around where he just can't seem to get along with other people.  The problem is that once offended, the man has little choice about what he is going to do next. So I shot 'em down One by one Then I left 'em 'long the rails I use my gun Whenever kindness fails That is only the chorus of Whenever Kindness Fails, so you can imagine the body count is rather high by the end of the tune.  The song is actually sang in ballad mode; kind of subdued and subtle, but fairly bloodthirsty nonetheless.  It is fairly typical of the Texas Country movement.  The only question I have is whether Texas is a place I should avoid or just break down and move there.
Filed under: Music, Track of the Day	August 29, 2007, 2:04 pm | Permalink | 0 Comments
Previous: Dark Destinations in the News (8/28/07)	Next: Dark Destinations in the News (8/29/07)
There are 0 comments in the database.
User Comments	Order by: Most Recent | Originally Submitted
There are currently no comments for this entry.
There are 0 comments in the database.
Add Comment | Return to Index

Horror Blogs Search

Find: All Words Any Words Exact Match   Search: TheCabinet.com Blog Horror Blogs All of General