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Hoh, oh, oh. Watch the fuck out. I’m going to try really hard to keep this in check, but there’s so much to say. Recently, a friend of ours happened to mention The Statler Brothers. It went something like “Hey, I saw an old newspaper the other day and one of the ads was for a Statler Brothers gig at a prison rodeo. I thought of you guys.”

Well, that was plenty. Never mind the hilarity of the prison rodeo gig, it instantly triggered my complex and possibly Oedipal fascination with The Statler Brothers that exists in me constantly, just below the surface. Hm, actually my hatred for Charlie Sheen’s comedic persona exists just below the surface, so my love of the Statlers is probably just under that. Except — what about my hatred for Ray Romano? That has got to be right in there, too. And there must be room for my hatred of the forceful mentally-challenged know-it-all blowhard from down the street. I’m not sure where my Statler Brothers thing really resides, I guess.

Nonetheless, this week it springs to the surface, and I doubt I’ll be able to contain it. I will try, but I find them fascinating.

I am not posting their greatest track, which is, of course, “Every Time I Trust a Gal.” (Just kidding — but when’s the last time somebody rocked a chorus of kazoos like that?) I am posting instead “How Are Things in Clay, Kentucky.” And while it’s not their best musically, it’s still almost perfectly indicative of what Harold, Phil, Don, and Lew were all about (I’ll get to you in due order, Jimmy). To wit:

How are things in Clay, Kentucky?
Bet you thought I’d never care
There was a time when I felt lucky
Just to be away from there.

So first of all, this one obviously goes down in Clay, Kentucky. Does that mean something? Absolutely. And…not really. Clay, Kentucky means nothing. It’s a ~2,000-person burg in western Kentucky, for one thing. Which is bleak any way you slice it. There might be a reason The Statlers called it out, but maybe not. The point is that the protagonist is pining for a former lover who chose to live there. Chose to live there! The protag is in New York City making clandestine telephone calls to a married former flame in Clay! It’s ludicrous, right?

Maybe, maybe not. The thing is, The Statler Brothers will often appear to be ludicrous — preachy, old timey throwbacks to a time that to have seemed old-timey even when it was modern. But there’s something you need to understand about what The Statlers have always understood in full: the horrible regret and unavoidable sadness of having lived. So let’s stick with this, move past some stuff about the protag thinking NYC would offer everything he wanted, but finding that “how things are in Clay, Kentucky, has been lately on my mind,” and get to the stuff that’s classic Statlers (yes, I’m willing to write things like “classic Statlers” unironically — that kind of irony is for tight-pantsed hipster douchebags, and we’re all weathered adults here):

I hear kids back there playin’;
I hope he don’t know it’s me
Jesus knows I still love you,
But I just had to call and see.

How things are in Clay, Kentucky.
Bet you thought I’d never care
There was a time when I felt lucky
Just to be away from there.

Aw, man. Can you hear that? That’s the sound of some poor slob’s heart creaking and groaning through the rest of his life. Those fucking genius Statlers chose New York City for a reason, see. They chose stupid, dumpy, Clay, Kentucky for the same reason — to make it hurt.

Oh, and let the fact that “Jesus” shows up in a stanza in which he otherwise doesn’t belong serve as a harbinger of strange things to come. The Statlers are super religious, see, but that somehow doesn’t stop them from cheating on wives, breaking up marriages, and engaging in all manner of country music shenanigans. Evidently the abhorrent crimes required to produce country music trump any real effort to follow the teachings of Jesus after all.

“How Are Things in Clay, Kentucky?” taken from the 1980 10th Anniversary collection.

And the kml for all mp3s of the week.