From "Will the circle be unbroken?" to "Why don't you love me like you used to do?" to "Do you think about me?", country music has a long and distinguished history of posing questions -- some rhetorical, but most pleading -- in three-quarter and two-steppin' time. With this album's centerpiece title track, the Star Room Boys add one more to the pile, and then they bravely use the surrounding songs to seek out answers.
Among the theories: the high of regret ("Foolish"), the painful comfort of nostalgia ("Someone's Playing Our Song"), and the eternal battle of wanderlust vs. plain old lust ("New York City Isn't Going Anywhere").
The music fits the words like bottle to hand, something evident in the record's first 10 seconds as songwriter/frontguy Dave Marr's life-weary, love-wary voice bellies up alongside the omnipresent pedal steel of John Neff (Drive By Truckers, Barbara Cue) on "Gastonia". A minute later, when Marr reaches the line "She was alone the night I met her/All alone deep in her eyes/Now she's heading for her hometown/ with the trucks on 85," you'll find yourself imagining this Athens, Georgia, band sharing a dream bill with their buddies about five hours north on I-85, North Carolinians the Two Dollar Pistols.
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