Drive-By Truckers Mark Election Day With Dire Political Anthem “The Perilous Night”
“We're off the deep end with a lifeguard that can't swim"
Photo by Danny Clinch Music News Drive-By Truckers
It’s Election Day, and Drive-By Truckers aren’t particularly pleased with the way things are going.
Patterson Hood and company are picking up where their acclaimed 2016 album American Band left off, airing their political grievances in a scathing new single, “The Perilous Night.” The song will be released as a limited-edition 7” with “What It Means (Live at Newport Folk Festival),” which is exactly what it sounds like. You can preorder the 7” here ahead of its Dec. 15 release on ATO Records—a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Drive-By Truckers have also announced their first live shows of 2018, with a 15-date North American headlining tour kicking off in Kansas City, Mo. on Jan. 26 and wrapping up with a three-night stand at the 40 Watt in their hometown of Athens, Ga. on Feb. 15-17.
Hood describes the band’s undaunted new single as “the darkest song I’ve ever written” in a statement:
“The Perilous Night” is a sort of nightmarish epilogue to the themes we addressed on American Band. I began writing it on the day the Electoral College met in December 2016 and completed it in the wake of the horrific events in Charlottesville, Va. last summer. We recorded it in Athens during a break in our fall tour and mixed it on the day Tom Petty passed away. It may be the darkest song I’ve ever written, but it’s also a dance song. Turn it up!
Hood doesn’t flinch while addressing the dire state of our nation on “The Perilous Night,” warning that the “Fourth Reich in khakis is beckoning” and later singing:
The Klan and the Nazis are taking up the fight
against their own salvation in the savior’s light
We’re moving into the perilous night, Amen
Flags of oppression are blocking out the light
dismantling The Greatest Generation’s fight
We’re moving into the perilous night, Amen
American Band made our list of 2016’s very best albums. “As a political statement, it’s easily the Drive-by Truckers’ most emphatic work,” wrote Eric R. Danton in his review for Paste, deeming the record “a body of work that is starting to feel increasingly essential as the American political landscape gets more and more surreal.” Hopefully, today’s vote will move us in the other direction.
Watch the lyric video for “The Perilous Night,” listen to “What It Means (Live at Newport Folk Festival)” and Drive-By Truckers’ 2010 Daytrotter Session, and see the band’s tour dates below.
Drive-By Truckers 2018 Tour Dates:
January
26 – Kansas City, Mo. @ The Truman #
27 – Minneapolis, Minn. @ First Avenue #
28 – Sioux Falls, S.D. @ Orpheum Theatre #
31 – Missoula, Mont. @ The Wilma #
February
01 – Portland, Ore. @ Roseland Theater #
02 – Vancouver, British Columbia @ Imperial #
03 – Seattle, Wash. @ Moore Theatre #
05 – Boise, Idaho @ Knitting Factory #
07 – San Francisco, Calif. @ Great American Music Hall #
08 – San Francisco, Calif. @ Great American Music Hall #
09 – Los Angeles, Calif. @ El Rey #
10 – Phoenix, Ariz. @ The Van Buren #
15 – Athens, Ga. @ 40 Watt with T. Hardy Morris
16 – Athens, Ga. @ 40 Watt with David Barbe and Inward Dream Ebb / Camp Amped
17 – Athens, Ga. @ 40 Watt #
(# – with Lilly Hiatt)