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The feeling in this performance is haunting and raw. I think the producers were going for a Gothic feel to key in on the “vampire” element. The extra reverb to the arrangement helps. To me, however, the real power is in the eye contact. I don’t want to go a gossipy route or invade anybody’s privacy, but that’s an undeniably heroic performance in my book, on both their parts. I couldn’t keep my composure just watching it next to my spouse.

Their more recent performance of the song on Austin City Limits seems like they’ve grown more accustomed to it. Whether that’s them or me, I don’t know. It feels less intense, although still well done.

Mortal boundaries

Isbell currently rides a well-deserved wave of popularity for his incisive, plain-spoken lyrics. He’s more like John Prine than Bob Dylan to my ear. I appreciate the accessibility of his songs, as I mentioned above. I also appreciate that he gives mortality healthy respect throughout his songwriting, not just in “If We Were Vampires.”

Isbell’s previous album, Something More than Free, includes “Children of Children,” in which the singer reflects on being the child of teenage parents. The protagonist in the song speaks of the years of his own life as stealing years from his mother’s. He frames his existence as a cost against the finite denominator of his mother’s life, and he expresses pain at the fraction he exacted. Time running out feels like less of a gift in this song. Similarly, “Speed Trap Town” reflects on the life change that opens for its protagonist when his ailing father passes away.

The Nashville Sound covers a range of themes, but death hovers about the edges, even when it doesn’t take center stage. It’s more or less implicit in both “Molotov” and “Last of My Kind,” which appeared in the Tiny Desk Concert. After running the gamut of the strong feelings Isbell explores, The Nashville Sound delivers sweeter, sentimental “Something to Love” at the end. The protagonist in this song reflects on his musical upbringing and addresses a young daughter, with the infinite and the finite playing off each other. Each verse, in its own way, subtle or not, has a mortal tinge. In the first verse, we hear “old men with old guitars smoking Winston Lights.” In the second, old women sing “softly to the savior like a friend.” In the third, he sings of the child’s mother in the past tense.

Lyrics

In the fourth and final verse, his advice to find something to love concludes with “just find what makes you happy, girl, and do it ’til you’re gone.” The counsel here is for what to do with the time you have. The father’s wish to his daughter dispels the comforting delusion of immortality through children, and gives her calling its own mortal boundary.

Songs that do the work

Isbell expresses dissatisfaction in the Saunders interview with the tendency of fans to suppose that he is the protagonist of his songs. I’m not going to assume that either, although in other interviews he’s acknowledged that “Something to Love” is partly autobiographical. As always, I want to keep a proper distance on that front, despite the personal themes involved. I won’t allege that these songs fully tell my story, either. My stories and his, though, meet in a meaningful middle. That’s really what the art is all about in the end. I don’t suppose that through them that I understand him better. I can only hope I understand myself better.

I’m still working through the elements of personal history and strong feeling that these songs evoke. It will remain an open question whether I will “need them” or appreciate them in the same way over time. It’s yet another question whether I should keep them around. Perhaps it’s best that their allure is temporary and not enduring. That doesn’t necessarily diminish their value.

Writing through various murder ballads and “conversations with death” has done a lot of work for me over the years of this blog. It’s been immensely rewarding in multiple ways. I am finding that I’m wanting to push beyond those boundaries. Those of you who have been reading our posts have probably seen me say this over the last couple years. Murder ballads provided a solid creative direction for a while, and I’m finding that I want to explore more avenues. The songs will stay with me as old favorites, but I’m in a different place with how I engage the genre.

My writing work here has also recently helped lead me to a new “something to love.” I’m going to be devoting a good deal of time and creative energy to that new work now. I’ll be taking a backseat to Pat here at Murder Ballad Monday for the foreseeable future. Pat and I, and our other contributors, are going to be doing some creative thinking over the coming months to expand our vision for this conversation. Please stay tuned. Thanks, as always, for listening and reading.

You can listen to a Spotify playlist of all the songs in this post here.