The Inflection Point

The Appalachian Mountains stretch from Western Alabama to Newfoundland Canada, spanning 14 different states in the USA, and three countries in total. It is the largest mountain chain in the Eastern United States, covering over 432 different counties at almost 20,000 miles long. It no doubt has had more influence on American politics, geography, and early settlements and U.S. cities than perhaps any other geological feature in American history. These mountains are so old and influential, they are almost significantly pronounced differently depending on where you are in the country. The mountainous verticals of diverse landscapes, heavily forested areas, were settled by Natives thousands of years before Columbus even made his voyage. Tribes like the Cherokee, Creek, Catawba, and Chickasaw have made these majestic hills their home for so long, these mountains have created a spiritual, almost mythical being you can feel in the cool elevated air. If you’ve lived around there long enough you’ve heard of such stories as the Brown Mountain Lights, Snarly Yow, a dog-like creature, or the Raven Mocker, a witch-like being said to steal the souls of the dying. These legends often reflect the isolation and unique experiences of the people who have lived here.

The Appalachian Mountains are among the oldest mountains on the face of this great planet, the only one we’ve known. Around 480 million years ago, archaeologists believe the Appalachian Mountains were among the heights of the Alps and Rockies, making them among the biggest mountain ranges on the planet. But today they grower smaller and smaller each day, both in size and in influence. Archaeologists will credit natural erosion – but that’s not quite where I’d land on the decay.

“I can hear ’em now talking, ah God it is scandalous

His Papaw’d be rolling, I don’t where he strayed

I know that you’d know him, he’s the one on the radige (radio)

He’s the one with the vidgya (video) of the coal minin’ gays”

I’m not sure I’ve had a chance to hear a more divisive album in the past few years than the latest Tyler Childers album Snipe Hunter, an acid trip country music album causing such reflux in the throat you’ve got no choice but to let it out, and try to stumble around and figure out all the pieces digested to put the puzzle together again. Childers has long been a pioneer of the “outlaw” country scene (more on that in a moment); his first major album Purgatory, followed by Country Squire, were produced by Sturgill Simpson, another psychedelic country music independent and fugitive – giving Childers, a product of Lawrence County, Kentucky, the stamp of approval and trusting he needed to break through to major audiences. His hit #1 song Feathered Indians, followed by some of the best, most authentic love songs I’ve ever heard (All Your’n off of ‘Squire, In Your Love off a 2023 release – Rustin in the Rain) created the type of recognition and gravitas Childers spectacular songwriting had always deserved.

The money however, would always linger behind. These new breeds of country music artists (Childers, Simpson, and Jason Isbell) beginning around 2014 – shunned the canonized industry and glitz ball of Nashville, the MEGA Country Music HQ. It was sometime after September 11, 2001 where country music became less outlaw and authentic, instead overflowing with fake patriotism, simplistic bigotry, tired tropes, and the same fucking three or four chords and progressions over and over. Nashville had become a formula – they had convinced audiences what sounded good, and you had to play their game in order to make it big in country music. Long gone were the original country music stars (now thought of as outlaws?) Authentic voices like Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson who held pioneer the genre of hard worn, hang doggedness, calloused, strong country and folk music were both equally celebrated and forgotten – both the production of the music, and what it represented.

No after 2001, with the rising and swelling patriotism, country music found it’s chance to match the political sentiments of the time. Faux patriotism, exclusion, Christian superiority, and moral ambivalence grew to dominate the country charts – artists like Toby Keith, Brooks & Dunn, and Alan Jackson became overnight chart toppers. Keith wrote The Red White and Blue just after, an annual song you’re apparently required to hear every July 4th – making him apparent Chief of Patriotism and Country Music – yet I’m reminded of a story of when he met Kristofferson, a true American and country music star as apposed to the corporate schill and advantageous proprietor Toby Keith – per Ethan Hawke of The Rolling Stone.

“Standing backstage at the Beacon Theatre in New York, leaning against a crumbling brick wall in the dark, I could barely see Kris Kristofferson standing to my left….. It was Willie Nelson’s 70th birthday concert in 2003.

Up from the basement came one of country music’s brightest stars (Keith). At that moment in time, the Star had a monster radio hit about bombing America’s enemies back into the Stone Age.

“Happy birthday,” the Star said to Willie, breezing by us. As he passed Kristofferson in one long, confident stride, out of the corner of his mouth came “None of that lefty shit out there tonight, Kris.”

“You ever worn your country’s uniform?” Kris asked rhetorically.

“What?”

“Don’t ‘What?’ me, boy! You heard the question. You just don’t like the answer.” He paused just long enough to get a full chest of air. “I asked, ‘Have you ever served your country?’ The answer is, no, you have not. Have you ever killed another man? Huh? Have you ever taken another man’s life and then cashed the check your country gave you for doing it? No, you have not. So shut the fuck up!” I could feel his body pulsing with anger next to me. “You don’t know what the hell you are talking about!”

“Whatever,” the young Star muttered.

“You know what Waylon Jennings said about guys like him?” he whispered.

I shook my head.

“They’re doin’ to country music what pantyhose did to finger-fuckin’.”

This is the formula that has remained for the last few decades. Keep it about patriotism, nuclear family, God, church, farming, tractors, dogs, or whatever backwards conservative approach you can think of. Nothing actually representative of the people or places country music best represented. Nothing about the Appalachian Mountains or an actual mirror to society there. And don’t you dare speak out.

Those damn Dixie Chicks were at the top of the game and spoke out against the War on Iraq in 2003. They were subsequently shadow banned and banished from the Nashville establishment. It’s not profiting to have your own opinions.

Where the fuck was I going with this? Oh yes – Tyler Childers. You want to talk about pissing some people off? Those previous songs I mentioned – starting with Feather Indians, his biggest hit to date with over 621 million Spotify plays and a Certified Double Platinum award for his work, well he has not played it live since 2020. He had this to say recently in a GQ album around this release (would recommend).

“One scholar, who posts to Instagram as Not Your Mama’s History, reached out to him, and he started reading her posts, thinking about what makes something problematic, particularly when filtered through a lens of white supremacy. And he thought about the word “Indian,” and whether or not he wanted to keep using a term that Indigenous groups themselves often reject and debate. “If there’s conversation amongst those individuals about whether they should be using that word or not, then it ain’t for me to be using. It’s not mine.”

He takes a long, deep pause as his eyes well up: He doesn’t apologize for his emotion, only waits until he’s gathered himself enough to speak. The tears fall anyway, and he starts telling a story about a time a few years ago when he took a hide tanning class out in Montana and met an Indigenous man named Shawn who lived on the Blackfeet reservation. He wondered what Shawn would think of “Feathered Indians” and realized that he hoped he never heard it—he wanted Shawn to feel safe in his presence, and know Childers respected him and his heritage. When he found out Shawn’s nephew was a fan, he went back to his Airbnb and cried.

“That song has some of my favorite lines I’ve ever written, some of my favorite melodies,” he says, wiping his eyes. At this point, the table of people setting up for his radio duties in the background have all quietly stopped to listen. “Not playing that song is going to make people think.”

Yeah that might piss some people off. The Appalachian native knows exactly what growing up in Appalachia can do to a man – keep with the flow, don’t create any mess. Any original thoughts or new way of looking at problems won’t profit anyone, and worse, it can make you an outcast. The Appalachian Mountains are dying more and more every day after all.

So yeah, not great if you’re a dull headed, Luke Combs, Zach Bryan, or racist ass Morgan Wallen fan. Morgan Wallen has no problem saying worse, and Childers should know the antiquated Appalachian culture wouldn’t care. So whatever, all good. He recently released a song in 2023 titled In Your Love which I personally have heard played at the last two weddings I’ve went to. It’s quite popular – Childers moans that

“We were never made to run forever

We were just made to go long enough

To find whatever we were chasing after

I believe I found it here in your love.”

It’s a beautiful song beloved by all – Country music brick-head or not. Yet when a months later Childers released the music video, the video was of two gay coal miners. YOWZERS! Not half bad of a statement from the son of a coal miner himself. There’s another timeline here where Childers stays and works in the Kentucky mines himself, never growing out or questioning anything on his own. This kind of timeline is not only probable, it’s a strong sense of every other person I’ve ever grown up with in Appalachia. So let’s revisit again:

“I can hear ’em now talking, ah God it is scandalous

His Papaw’d be rolling, I don’t where he strayed

I know that you’d know him, he’s the one on the radige (radio)

He’s the one with the vidgya (video) of the coal minin’ gays”

The above from a great song midway through the album called Poachers, Childers finally discusses a bit tongue-in-cheek about his obvious standing in the modern day Country music landscape as well as just what his ancestors (and Appalachia speaking as a whole might think of him).

The album starts with a fucking electric, cosmic sounding, alt-country rock anthem Eatin’ Big Time that quickly establishes the overall off-the-wall-ness from the jump, making the listener pause and reassess what’s expected. Easily one of the finest songs I’ve heard all year. It’s also clear from the opener that Rick Rubin’s influence here is strong, co-producer of the album, as Childers went to Shang-Ri-La and visited the whisperer of artists, king of hits, non-owner of razors. Rubin was not the only visit Childers had for the album – he has a song on the later half title Tirtha Yatra, about a spiritual journey he had after reading the Bhagavad Ghita and traveling to India. Ahhhh yes, the classic ol’ country song about finding a religious epiphany through Hinduism. I’ll take things I thought I’d never hear for $1000 Alex! (RIP)

“I’d go to Kuru Sectura

You know, I couldn’t even tell you if I am or not pronouncin’ it right

But coming from a cousin-lovin clubfoot somethin’ somethin’

Backwood searcher, I would hope that you’d admire the try.“

The rest of the album plays out in different variations of this searching. It has dizzying organs all over it. It’s synthed up all over the place. It goes quiet when it needs to. It often sounds like Childers has 5-6 different voices throughout all 14 songs on the track-list, never particularly tied to a certain sound or key. It’s both a strong country album, yet it sounds nothing close to a country album that has been put out in the 21_^st century. It’s quite obvious this is part of the journey, the self-proclaimed “observations from a traveling hillbilly.” It’s an album and an artist that ventures far from the homelands of the Appalachian mountains.

It’s an album from a “country outlaw.” Key word outlaw meaning from an independent artist, both in actual studio production, and in school and freedom of thought. I’d simply call the man an artist, as good as any. Especially as good as any in these decaying mountains I grew up in and have been running from my whole life. It’s even sparked great hate articles I’ll link here calling Childers a “hick Lib.” Tremendous stuff. The Dixie Chicks got the same for having opinions I guess.

I asked some friends back home what they thought of this album – it came to no surprise to me that they all really hated it.

It made me love it even more. I wonder what my Papaw would say as well.

– CC