The new album from the Old 97’s, “Most Messed Up,” is blistered, blasted, and brilliant: song after song about the diminishing returns of the road, the ravages of early middle age, and the equally damaging effects of too much thinking and too much drinking. Rhett Miller’s songs are the bloodiest he’s written in years, largely the result of self-laceration, but they hold out hope for hope. This week, we début “Nashville,” one of the record’s standouts:
Miller agreed to answer a few questions about the song and the album.
Why did you name it ‘Nashville’? Is that where it takes place, or is it some kind of psychological version of Nashville (drinking, brawling, loving, leaving)?
I wrote the song “Nashville” outside of Nashville with a guy named Jon McElroy. He had already written the first line of the chorus (“Who’d I got to blow / to get in this fuckin’ show”), and I really related to it. Like most musicians, I have always felt like an outsider. But I even sometimes feel like an outsider around other musicians, around other outsiders. “Nashville” is something of a microcosm for us. The 97’s took forever to break through in that town. So it sort of works as a metaphor for the whole music industry. We’ve never had massive success. And I think that’s been good for me as a writer. But at a certain point you start thinking, Holy shit, what do I have to do?
_We’ve talked about the strain of lyrics about how the enormity of the universe makes individuals insignificant and/or enables narcissism. There’s a line in this song about looking out into space and seeing yourself reflected back. Songwriters who write autobiographically, to some degree (and maybe that’s most songwriters, or most writers), battle with how much of themselves to show, and how much to keep. How did you balance that on this record?
You’re right on with this one. Sometimes I get caught in a loop, thinking, How many more records do I have to make? In the studio and on the stage, I’m giving and giving. And I love it—don’t get me wrong. But sometimes I get scared, wondering where it comes from and if it might dry up. And forget about wondering what it means! This shit is enough to make you crazy.
What does this song tell people about the rest of the record? Is it representative? Misleading?
This song was the inspiration for this entire pile of songs. Before we even started writing, that day in Nashville, Jon McElroy said to me, “I think your fans want to hear you walk up to the mic and say ‘fuck.’ ” Something about that clicked with me. It was as if I was being given permission to not be the good guy all the time. And that informed all of the songs on this record. I’ve taken it a step further. It’s almost as if I used to have to apologize to everybody for everything. And now I don’t have to do that anymore. In my life and career, I’ve worked hard and tried to do the right thing. I may not be perfect, but I deserve to be able to walk up to the mic and say “fuck” every once in a while.
Photograph by Eric Ryan Anderson/Shorefire.