Robert Earl Keen – Can you patch together a feeling that’s going to stick with somebody ten years from now?
III. I CAN END UP IN MEXICO AND JUST WRITE EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS
ND: The only cover on the album is Jimmy Driftwood’s “Long Chain”. With its ghostly imagery of a sinner locked in chains for a crime he can’t even remember, it sure fits in with the rest of the album. Why did you pick it?
REK: I heard it on a Tim O’Brien record, and I really, really liked it. I liked the lyrics. That theme is…probably the first time anybody sharpened a rock to write on the wall of a cave, they probably came up with that theme. But it’s really well-done way that Jimmy Driftwood did it, and I love that whole thing of “the bright light came onto his face” and stuff [“And though he was tired and hungry/A bright light came over his face/He bowed his head on his bosom/He made a beautiful grace”]. I kind of feel like that sometime. I think we all carry that around with us.
ND: On a whole other emotional level, is the ironically titled “A Border Tragedy” going to be your swan song to Mexico?
REK: I had a really good time doing that. It was really so fun! You know that was really like speaking in a journalistic way. Every once in awhile I can really take what happened and then just try to chronicle it. Like in the song “Gringo Honeymoon” — that’s really what happened. And I don’t know why I can end up in Mexico and just write exactly what happens, but that’s how it just came out.
I’ve played that place [the bar mentioned in the song] three or four times, and there’s a story for every time I’ve been there. But this particular night, these two guys, I had their outlook — they could give a shit, and they think everything is funny and they’re wearing old cowboy shit, but they’re kings in their own country. And everything’s a hoot to ’em — they’re in this shithole, and they’re all laughing and having the greatest time. And I thought, damn, it’s all about where you’re at in your head. And I had to get that in there.
ND: Had Ray Price heard the song before you got him to add “Streets Of Laredo” to the end of it?
REK: It’s a weird thing — we get this done, and I said [to producer/guitarist Rich Brotherton], “Rich, I want to tag this with ‘Streets Of Laredo’.” And he said, “Ray Price could sing it!” And I went, “OK! What a great idea! How do we find Ray Price?” “Fuck, I don’t know!”
So we set out to track down Ray Price, and as a matter of fact he was playing in Helotes [near Keen’s Bandera home in the Texas Hill Country] last May, and we got his road manager’s cell number, and we ran it by him. Because, think about this — how do you explain this song?
ND: Like, “OK, Ray, you come in right after the guy throws up in the alley…”
REK: Right, right. I was going, look, just trust me it’s gonna be fun. We’re not gonna take up a lot of your time and we’re going to pay you, blah, blah, blah. And once again we explained it to him. And they’re just sitting there, going, God, are these guys gonna take the whole afternoon?
So, I finally go, “Well, are you in?” And he finally says, “Can I hear the song?” And I go, “Oh…yeah! Yeah!” So I play it for him and he goes, “Fine.” And he did it. And it was really great. He was a real sport about it.
He was pretty damn intimidating. I was like, damn…He didn’t exactly get up and slap me on the back. I can’t tell you why, but having Ray Price sing it made all the difference, and it sounds so good.
IV. WHEN YOU’VE GOT THE KNOWLEDGE, YOUR ARM’S A LITTLE BETTER
ND: Apart from the fact that your label, Koch Records, is headquartered there, does Nashville have any relevance for you?
REK: Yeah, my booking agent for ten years is there. Physically, it does. If I had not gone to Nashville, I probably would have done something in the creative world somehow. Maybe I would have been writing songs. But the fact that I went there and I came back and kind of got beat up…like I went to war, and I got my ass kicked, and I came back and I licked my wounds — and I realized that I had absorbed all this stuff in the process…I kind of felt like I knew how to work it then.
I was no longer lost, just one of those people who go, “Golly, you make a neat song and put it on the radio and people will like it!” Wrong! That is so far off you can’t even believe it. And some of that stuff is disquieting and kind of disturbing, but the fact is, when you’ve got the knowledge, your arm’s a little bit better.
Nashville, you know, I do bits and pieces of stuff with Nashville. It’s still part of me, I still call people when I need to know something; I still have a good group of friends there.
ND: What about feeling a kinship with the creative community, like Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris?
REK: Naw, I’ve always been an outsider on that deal. And Steve’s the one who talked me into going to Nashville in the first place. I’ve never really been embraced. It’s been somewhat frustrating. I know people talk about me and they say good things about me, but at the same time, when they have these big ol’ benefits or those big shows where they have all the coolest of the cool of Nashville, I’m never part of it.
Quite frankly, I feel like the little kid going, “C’mon Coach, put me in…” But those things are really borne out of sitting around having a cocktail and some managers talking. I shouldn’t feel like it’s a personal thing, but it sometimes feels like that.