The Peculiar Case of the Human Song Generators: The Paranoid Style’s A Goddamn Impossible Way of Life
By 
As Elizabeth noted yesterday, The Paranoid Style’s terrific new record A Goddamn Impossible Way of Life is out today for your streaming or purchasing pleasure. As always, the songs are one great line after another, stuffed with allusions that will bring you pleasure if you recognize them but will still work if you don’t. The title track, about (inter alia) the tragic death of 11 people at a concert in Riverfront Stadium and getting its title from Robbie Robertson in The Last Waltz, weaves the themes brilliantly thought out, such as:
Second tour with Kenney Jones/Things were just settling in/Second tour without Keith/He can’t play the fills/but he keeps the beat
They weren’t screaming for you/they were just screaming
I hope I get old before I die/I hope I die before I’m made an example
Well, they digitally removed the coke from Neil’s nose. you know/Or so the rumor goes, I don’t know/Was he a heavy doper/Or an occasional user?/He was a friend of yours
There’s plenty of other great stuff, starting with the lead track in which a friend going crazy becomes anyone with a conscience, the pragmatic-in-the-face-of-austerity because what choices do you have “Expecting to Fly (Economy),” the Rand/Greenspan/Ryan call-out “Endless Cycle of Meaningless Behavior,” the plight-of-British-unionism finale, and plenty of funny and compassionate and appropriately frightened material about trying to make an impossible living in a horrible political context (a context in which Newt plays the role that is too often forgotten), all powered by guitar hooks that make the great lines hold.
But, hey, don’t take my word for it:
Spot-on essay by the Always excellent Elizabeth Nelson. Check out her new badass album w her great band The Paranoid Style. I saw The Who a few weeks earlier on this tour in Bham AL. It was lousy. Might get fooled again. https://t.co/p6Yxf22TCj— Patterson Hood (@pattersonhood) July 26, 2019