“This is not necessarily a song about war but it’s a song about the effect that war has on certain people when they’re coming home because I know a little about that.”Jason Isbell (646)

“When you’re in a small town, there’s a higher percentage of people that fight overseas. I’m not an anti-war person, but I do think a stupid idea is a stupid idea.  It’s hard to filter through the media and see what the truth is nowadays.  It’s almost impossible, but some ideas seem like good ones and some seem like bad ones. I try to go on a case-by-case basis.  Surely I wouldn’t say we shouldn’t have participated in World War II, but at the same time, I don’t necessarily think the Iraq war was the best idea. But either way, I’m not here to make policy. My main concern is with individuals and their stories. When I write a song about war, it’s personal to me. What’s more interesting than being reminded of your mortality on a daily basis? It’s a topic that should be on everyone’s mind all the time. I’ve never been to war, so I don’t write about being in war itself. I try to write about the effect the war is having on the homefront or on individuals. I do know something about that. It’s important to me and so many people overlook it.”Jason Isbell (648)

“It’s about a person who’s been away [from Alabama – Ed] for too long and is in a place of desperation and looking for some kind of help. You can get away from that center really easily. I have a lot of friends who have left the area in search of greener pastures and that doesn’t always work.  You can wind up in a really desperate place. Think about “The Boxer”, the Paul Simon song. It’s the need to go out in search of something better and then you lose yourself.”Jason Isbell (648)

“There’s an unrealized allegory in that song, because it wasn’t necessarily Alabama that I wanted to go home to. It was the time before my life had gotten fucked up. And the time before I was a raging alcoholic, and in the middle of a divorce. [Isbell married musician Shonna Tucker in 2002 – Ed].”Jason Isbell (1192)

“[About a child seeking out their estranged father – Ed]. It’s written before any point of forgiveness. And that’s not my story, but Ive been around people that have grown up without immediate family.  It gets complicated because a lot of times somebody will try to get back in touch and it brings up a flood of emotions because there’s so much blame there. It’s hard to move it aside to repair the situation. This is a character that is determined to, at least temporarily, remove the idea of “it’s your fault” or “you did this to me.” They try to accept the situation and move forward.”Jason Isbell (648)

“It’s guilt that I’ve always felt about coming into the world at a time when my parents were very young and not necessarily prepared for it.”Jason Isbell (649)

“I usually create characters, then allow them to behave the way they normally would. Sometime it’s a real person; sometimes it’s a combination of people that I know. “Yvette” is kind of a companion to “Daisy Mae,” off the last record. It still amazes me how many people were sexually abused when they were kids. I didn’t grow up in a dangerous place; my parents got divorced when I was really young, and we went through the usual struggles associated with that, but it wasn’t a dangerous home at all. That’s the anomaly now. The older I get, the more I realize that the anomaly is not the trauma. It’s the other way around. Most people have dealt with it. I’m not a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist or anything, so I don’t have any way of helping people deal with that … other than by telling a few stories once in awhile.”Jason Isbell (660)

“I usually create characters, then allow them to behave the way they normally would. Sometime it’s a real person; sometimes it’s a combination of people that I know. “Yvette” is kind of a companion to “Daisy Mae,” off the last record. It still amazes me how many people were sexually abused when they were kids. I didn’t grow up in a dangerous place; my parents got divorced when I was really young, and we went through the usual struggles associated with that, but it wasn’t a dangerous home at all. That’s the anomaly now. The older I get, the more I realize that the anomaly is not the trauma. It’s the other way around. Most people have dealt with it. I’m not a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist or anything, so I don’t have any way of helping people deal with that … other than by telling a few stories once in awhile.”Jason Isbell (660)

“That’s a combination of four or five different stories that all took place when I was in the band. I did wind up in a lot of hotel rooms thinking, “How did I get here? Who are these people?” If you’re fucked up enough, sometimes you wake up and realize that everyone you know has gone home, and you’re still in this room with strangers. For all you know, they might wanna kill you.”Jason Isbell (660)

“[One of the main characters struggles with cancer. The song never tells us if she winds up dying – Ed]. She might. She might not. I think she probably does, but the story happens before the trigger gets pulled. It’s the lead-up. It’s not the action or the event; it’s what happens before it. [Did you meet a lot of people like her, back in your drinking days? – Ed]. I’ve spent a lot of time at little bars in Alabama, getting to know a lot of people who’d eventually disappear. It’s kinda like that scene in Rent, when everyone starts vanishing. It was that way in this particular bar. I was dating the bartender, who was young, real sweet and kindhearted, and I said, “You know, these people aren’t gonna be around forever. You’re gonna get connected to these old drunks, and they’re just gonna vanish. Every few months, another one’s gonna be gone.” The song just came from that place – from having that connection with someone whose ship is going down, and allowing the relationship to mature in spite of that. Two people are sitting on barstools for a long period of time, and one person gets sick, and the other rises to the occasion.”Jason Isbell (660)

“I wrote this song for my wife [Amanda Shires – Ed] before she was my wife.”Jason Isbell (683)

“I wrote this for my wife after I got sober. I was going through this really difficult transitional period and there’s a line in there in particular about getting sober.”Jason Isbell (1022)

“I wrote this about a guy I went to High School with in Green Hill Alabama – Rogers High School which was also Rogers Middle School and Rogers Elementary School and Rogers Kindergarten. This guy was the quarterback on the High School football team – a few years after I graduated, he was younger than me. Proposed to his girlfriend on the parking lot of the football stadium. She said, “Yup,” and they got married and he went overseas with the Marine Corps. Some morning when he was on leave she got pregnant with a little girl and he went back and got killed and his little girl got born and I wrote this song about him. His name was Matthew Conley.”Jason Isbell (762)

“I started with that opening scene in the grocery store and the kind of lady who means to be helpful but always ends up being intrusive. I know that woman. The narrator obviously has a problem, but what’s the problem? As I wracked my brain, I remembered a chief of police in a town that was on 60 Minutes for being the worst speed-trap town in the nation. It was a scandal when he married my cousin’s ex-wife, because they’d been seeing each other while she was still married. So I said to myself, ‘What if the narrator’s father was a state trooper and wasn’t the most responsible father? What kind of realization would it take for the narrator to decide to leave that town?’ I wrote three choruses and I played the two finalists for my wife, and she said, ‘I think you know which is the best chorus.'”Jason Isbell (796)

“This song deals with crime and punishment. The protagonist isn’t exactly innocent, but he isn’t guilty of the crime for which he’s being punished.”Jason Isbell (971)