Artist	Song
ryan adams	"to be young (is to be sad, is to be high)"
neko case & her boyfriends	"set out running"
uncle tupelo	"new madrid"
elvis costello	"stranger in the house"
johnny cash	"i still miss someone"
kris kristofferson	"sunday mornin' comin' down"
jerry lee lewis	"before the next teardrop falls"
george jones	"she thinks i still care"
charlie rich	"behind closed doors"
waylon jennings	"black rose"
the rolling stones	"torn & frayed"
lucinda williams	"drunken angel"
the international submarine band	"blue eyes"
whiskeytown	"excuse me while i break my own heart tonight"
merle haggard	"the bottle let me down"
gillian welch	"barroom girls"
hank williams	"lost highway"
the louvin brothers	"the christian life"
the flying burrito brothers	"hot burrito no. 1"
neil young	"everybody knows this is nowhere"
buck owens	"excuse me (i think i've got a heartache)"
patsy cline	"crazy"
willie nelson	"blue eyes crying in the rain"
loretta lynn	"miss being mrs."
emmylou harris	"boulder to birmingham"
bob dylan	"tonight i'll be staying here with you"

Comment:

twangy, pedal steel guitars. high, lonesome harmonies. a chugging backbeat. melodrama & broken hearts. lost love & whiskey. seriously, what's not to love about country music? this is, for the most part, my very favorite country songs from my favorite performers (country & otherwise) - a sort of companion volume to my hip-hop mix, a yin to its yang, to be reductive. restrictions, however, apply: gram parson's duet with emmylou harris on "love hurts" is my favorite tune of his (& my favorite country song, period, & one of my top 20 all-time favorite songs from any genre), but it just wasn't fitting the way i wanted it to; "she still comes around (to love what's left of me)" is my favorite jerry lee lewis country song, but i felt that "before the next teardrop falls" nestled between the kristofferson & george jones too perfectly not to use; "come pick me up" is probably my favorite ryan adams tune (as it seems to be most people's), yet the achingly gorgeous bridge in & the perfect opener-status of "to be young" permitted its inclusion; & my favorite gillian welch song is probably "paper wings," but its jazzy underpinning didn't really fit the mood i was aiming for (plus, i really wanted to use that opening line as my title).

this was partly inspired by & has therefore been in the works since doowad's greasy, finger lickin' series of country mixes in the recent past. yes, i realize there's very little that's surprising, obscure or revelatory here; in fact, it probably looks quite similar to what what alot of country mixes around these parts would look like in the event that there were more floating around. alot of alt.country, country-fried rock, whoopin' honky tonk, tear-in-your-beer barroom weepers. however familiar my taste in country is in rock & roll corners, i have to admit to having an unabashed, enthusiastic adoration for this music. this was actually really close to being a two-disc set, before i settled on the fact that a single-disc primer of my favorite country tunes would be an infinitely stronger listen (& that it is - i've been listening to this constantly since i finished it the other day). the last tracks i had to (painfully) cut were "this old porch" by lyle lovett; "don't pass me by" by the beatles; "hickory wind" by the byrds; & "how much i've lied" by gram parsons. the latter two were cut because, even as gram parsons is my all-time favorite country figure (& one of my top 10 favorite music figures of all-time), it seemed a bit slanted to have a whopping four cuts from him. the lyle lovett & beatles tracks were cut for time constraints, which really hurt (especially the former).

that's pretty much it. title taken from, as mentioned earlier, gillian welch. enjoy!

update: i'm not usually one for posting links or uploads to my mixes - takes away a bit of the incentive, fun & charm of physically creating them, i feel. however, i've gotten enough requests for this, so i figured i'd throw up a link for everyone. it can be found here. you'll need to download & install winrar to extract the files; it's a fairly small, quick & easy-to-use program. shouldn't be too difficult. if there are any problems, just lemme know. most importantly, enjoy!

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