We're Earnest, and Contagious
How grunge killed alternative country, and why Trailer Bride could save it
But Swingle is the key. Her lyrics involve moonlight, beatings and buzzards, as well as the de rigueur jealous lovers and lost souls. Her voice is throaty like Patsy's, but her delivery is closer to Hank's, all flat expressionlessness that doesn't mask the yearning -- for love, self, peace, God. She can sing about abusive relationships and sound like a survivor, and she can sing about wanting to save her songs for the front porch and sound scared to death. In "Porch Song," the narrator's mother admonishes, "That's a pretty good song, but you ought to be singing for Jesus." The singer responds, "I know I should, someday I just might/hope Jesus will forgive me tonight," and in that moment, mischievous playfulness, fear of death, hunger for sex and love of music tangle together into the sort of gloriously complicated epiphany I'd forgotten country music could manage.
Whether the emergence of Trailer Bride signals a way out for No Depressionstyle music or simply the arrival of a blazing and singular talent remains to be seen. Regardless, Smelling Salts serves as a startling reminder that archness is not necessarily a sign of intelligence, that getting the joke can deny you wonder, that getting found might get you saved, but getting scared can get you art.
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