Terry Allen
Lubbock (On Everything)

I have a photo of Terry Allen with a high-brimmed hat pulled down over his head, cigarette, glasses, and a mustache that vaguely resembles Groucho Marx, showing a melancholic smile, of someone who manages to endure pain with serenity and composure. He seems shy, reserved, an unusual type, maybe a writer... who knows. The impression conveyed by the photo is accurate; Terry is one of the most complete artists of the past 30 years. Besides being a musician, he is an appreciated poet, journalist, and also a high-level sculptor (some of his works are exhibited at the Whitney Museum in New York, others at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris).

With Commander Cody, Joe Ely, Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, and a few others, Terry Allen has contributed to renewing country music, skillfully blending Honky Tonk, Blues, Tex-Mex, and folk. "Lubbock (On Everything)" is an album with an enticing and seductive sound, characteristic of borderlands, in which the intellectual atmosphere, Mexican moods and sounds perfectly blend with Texan ones. To shape this unknown (misunderstood) classic of border music, Joe Ely, the excellent accordionist Ponty Bone, and other great Texan musicians also contributed. Lubbock is an album where the poetic genius of the lyrics, corrosive, bitter, strongly contribute to the critique that Allen directs at the American lifestyle (The American Way Of Life).

An album of many nuances, whose artistic value far surpasses its fame. It includes about twenty tracks. The initial, "Amarillo Highway", in which guitar, piano, and violin merge into a full-bodied and captivating sound, conveys pure relaxation. The pianistic "Blue Asian Reds" is a decadent and melancholic ballad. "The Girl Who Danced Oklahoma" stands out for its characteristic rhythmic piano accompaniment. "The Beautiful Waitress" with an intense use of violins, sufficiently reminds me of "Midnight On The Water" by David Bromberg. "New Delhi Freight Train" also covered by Little Feat in "Time Love A Hero" has a rhythm resembling the cadence of a train, clearly different from the version by Lowell George's band. The catchy "The Great Joe Bob", a typical "story" song, and "My Amigo", a pleasant acoustic ballad. Below, I found the lyrics of a song, I can grasp the meaning, but my English doesn't allow me to make a decent translation.

Blue Asian Reds (for Roadrunner)
Yeah she got them red eyes
Ahhh from doin the red pills
And she says it's for the high times
Yeah she says it's for thrills
So she does reds... with her coffee
With her pepsi's and her gin
And she says it really does her out fine
But... it's just doin her in
You see...She lost her soldier boy
Over in Nam
And she found out a year ago Wednesday
When after work... she come home
And she read his latest letter
That said
Never again... would he leave her alone
But beside hit...the telegram
That said he was gone
Ohhh she cried and she cried
Yeah... for nearly a year
Then I guess she just lost the will to live
Like she lost that soldier... so dear
'Cause she just traded in all that sadness
And all of her fears
For a bottle...  marked heartache
Full of little red tears
Yeah she got them red eyes
Ahhh from doin the red pills
And she says it's for the high times
Yeah she says it's for thrills
So she does reds...with her coffee
With her pepsi's and her gin
And she says it really does her out fine
But... it's just doin her in