Ketch Secor of the band, Outdated Crow Drugs Present, says his group’s newest album, Union Made, is a love letter to the USA. It is filled with tales from the nation’s previous and current.
Transcript
DON GONYEA, HOST:
Some music earlier than we shut our program.
(SOUNDBITE OF OLD CROW MEDICINE SONG, “WAGON WHEEL”)
GONYEA: Outdated Crow Drugs Present made it large with their hit reimagining of “Wagon Wheel.” Now they’ve a brand new album filled with vignettes about America and the little particulars that make it particular of their eyes. The band’s chief, Ketch Secor, informed us a few of his favorites.
KETCH SECOR: You realize, our final couple albums weren’t so overtly a love letter to the US of A, regardless that as I look again on 28 years of being in Outdated Crow Drugs Present, I have been writing love letters to the states since I used to be a child. I grew up within the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, the place so lots of the battles have been fought within the Civil Battle, but additionally the place so lots of the beliefs have been crafted within the founding of America. And we went and mythologized the story of the Merrimack and the Monitor.
(SOUNDBITE OF OLD CROW MEDICINE SONG, “MERRIMACK & MONITOR”)
SECOR: They pulled me out of faculty to observe Ken Burns’ “Civil Battle.” You realize, I may stroll down the road in my hometown of Harrisonburg, Virginia, and see so lots of the issues that have been within the movie. So I simply felt, like, this echo of the ghosts of the previous.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MERRIMACK & MONITOR”)
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) Gone ironclad for a Union ship in insurgent arms to open up these seas once more.
SECOR: For me, I wished to take the tact of telling the story of the battle of the ironclads with a kind of comedian e-book ferocity. Like, you possibly can see the phrases kablam over the wreck of the frigate Roanoke that sunk only a few days earlier than the ironclads really confronted off.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MERRIMACK & MONITOR”)
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) Merrimack and Monitor.
SECOR: We’re definitely a nation that’s solid within the blood of this horrible struggle. However the battle between the ironclads represents a form of technological development for the army. We by no means talked about drone assaults. You realize, after I was a child, we talked about Scud missiles and Pioneer missiles. For a child rising up in 1860s, there was additionally a brand new time period. It was ironclad, and it was submarine.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “”LAST AMERICAN WALTZ”)
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) Oh, the fireplace within the furnace, the fog within the air. Sparks flew like tinsel.
SECOR: With “Final American Waltz,” I consider this music as form of certainly one of my, like, postcard forms of songs.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “”LAST AMERICAN WALTZ”)
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) All of the whereas hear the wild reckless tune. Is anyone listening?
SECOR: Like, I’m going to plenty of junk shops. I’ve since I used to be slightly child, you already know, all the time thumbing by the outdated solid offs of anyone else’s life. And I do not typically purchase stuff within the shops that I’m going to, the Goodwills and junk outlets. I simply leaf by issues, and I simply form of take it in. File retailer house owners hate me after I stroll in ‘trigger I will spend all day and I will not purchase nothing. Ephemera actually has a strong power in my life. So I consider this music, “Final American Waltz,” as me flipping by the postcards.
(LAST AMERICAN WALTZBITE OF SONG, “”LAST AMERICAN WALTZ”)
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) Oh, this hammer do not ring. This cannon do not roar. This practice certain for glory do not cease right here no extra.
SECOR: It is like, Pricey Delores, I went to the most important ball of twine in Kansas. You’d by no means consider how large it’s. Love, Sonny.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH”)
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) There’s one thing occurring right here. What it’s ain’t precisely clear.
SECOR: Once I consider “For What It is Price,” I image this well-known {photograph} of the hippie placing the stem of a daisy into the barrel of a gun. And so I consider this tune as form of just like the entrance strains of the American protest motion. And it is form of a bellwether kind of music that may remind us of the place we’re within the present iteration of civil disobedience and standing up. Whether or not it is the efforts of removing of authorized Americans, all the way in which to the cage match on the White Home garden, we’re residing in a time of actually arresting imagery. And but after I take into consideration what impressed me as a child and made me really feel extra richly American, it was the flower being put into the barrel of that gun.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH”)
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) I feel it is time we cease, hey, what’s that sound? All people look what is going on down
GONYEA: Ketch Secor of Outdated Crow Drugs Present. The band’s newest album is known as “Union Made.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH”)
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW: (Singing) Paranoia strikes deep.
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