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Flawed and schizophrenic, this grand mess makes a fine case for being the definitive southern rock album. Schizophrenic because most of Patterson Hood's songs fit one grand vision of growing up and living in the south, while Mike Cooley's (and Rob Malone's) songs seem to be more discreet, intimate stories with no obvious relationship to the concept (which I realize isn't technically schizophrenia at all). The best of Cooley's contributions is the melancholy "Zip City"****, about a horny and obviously frustrated kid in a small town - "your Sister's puttin' that sweet stuff on everybody in town but me". Though the sound is straight from the Neil Young loud folk playbook, Cooley's focus on working-class small town life is more Springsteen than Young, while "Women Without Whiskey"**** employs a more direct, classic rock riff. Mike Cooley also has the cowpunk covered, specifically "Guitar Man Upstairs" and "Shup Up and Get On The Plane"****. While both are basically rehashed early Uncle Tupelo, they do contain some good chuckles, such as this interaction with a cop:
He said "Boy come here" I said "Boy yourself I ain't done nothing wrong" from the former, and "Well your wishes and your feelings, Your bad dreams and intuitions Are about as much good to me right now as a brand new set of golf clubs" from the latter. Not that Mike Cooley's songs don't belong on the album, as "Shup Up and Get On The Plane" and Hood's "Greenville To Baton Rouge" both address life from the band's point of view. Malone meanwhile contributes the Charlie Sexton bluesy "Moved" and the heavily grooving "Cassie's Brother"**** (featuring Kelly Hogan), which Led Zeppelin wished they had enough delta blues in them to pull off.
But the grand scope and scale of Southern Rock Opera is all Hood. The cycle starts with a creepy narrative about an gruesome car accident, a familiar story to any rural inhabitant, echoing over a menacing riff in "Days Of Graduation"**** (the subject is covered again in "Plastic Flowers On The Highway). Another monologue, "The Three Great Alabama Icons"**** is intended as an introduction to the swing-y "Wallace", but far overshadows its successor with a powerful, deliberate riff backing an account of the lives of Ronnie Van Zant, Bear Bryant, and famous segregationist George Wallace. Told in the context of Hood's first-person impressions of growing up in the south, it provides a more nuanced point of view on one of the great villains of the civil rights era relative to the popular history With humor and conviction. Like any concept album, sacrifices are made to individual songs to work into a grand concept, and there are some rough edges in the form of some pretty clunky lyrics:
Ronnie and Neil Ronnie and Neil
Rock stars today ain't half as real
Speaking there minds on how they feel
Let them guitars blast for Ronnie and Neil
from "Ronnie and Neil" is particularly awkward.
While "The Southern Thing"**** struts like a mother, it has some goofy lines as well. Not that Hood is a total slave to the concept, and the heavily countrified "Dead, Drunk, and Naked"**** is as broad and funny as the title suggests. Terminating the album-concluding Lynyrd Skynyrd song cycle ("Cassie's Brother, "Life In The Factory", "Shut Up And Get On The Plane", "Greenville To Baton Rouge", "Angels And Fuselage") is the stately godson of "Tuesday's Gone", "Angels And Fuselage"****. Though some of the lines don't exactly roll off the tongue, the emotional impact of its finality is memorable. As a whole, Southern Rock Opera is impressive, in its consistency as well as its literary ambition. It may lack the sophisticated song-craft of Tommy, but the Broadway bullshit of The Wall is also absent, and I'm having trouble coming up with an actual American rock opera (as opposed to concept album) that is in the same ballpark. Did someone say Kilroy Was Here?
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