Sink Hole The Sands Of Iwo Jima Loaded Gun In The Closet Drive By Truckers

Sink Hole Album: Decoration Day (2003)
The Sands of Iwo Jima Album: The Dirty South (2008)
Loaded Gun in the Closet Album: Decoration Day (2003)
by Drive By Truckers

Decoration Day is an album released in 2003. The album was recorded mostly live over two weeks at Chase Park Transduction Studios in Athens, Georgia, and was produced by noted producer and former Sugar bassist David Barbe. The album is the Truckers' fifth, including their live album Alabama Ass Whuppin', following the critically acclaimed Southern Rock Opera. The album features a more mellow, stripped down, and reserved sound compared to Southern Rock Opera's heavy hitting southern rock.

Decoration Day is the first album to feature Jason Isbell on guitar; he would record two more albums with the band before leaving to pursue a solo career in 2007.

Guitarist and songwriter Patterson Hood describes Decoration Day as being lyrically a "pretty dark" record, though he notes that the band "had so much fun making it, and I think that kind of comes through". Three of the album's songs – "Heathens", "Your Daddy Hates Me" and "Give Pretty Soon" – are referred to as being Hood's "divorce trilogy", dealing with what Hood himself refers to as the "emotional fallout" that follows divorce. He has stated that Decoration Day is "more or less... an album about choices, good and bad, right and wrong, and the consequences of those choices." Seven of the album's tracks were first takes, while about five songs were second takes.

As is the Truckers' trademark, a number of Decoration Day's songs deal with elements of southern folklore. The title track, written by guitarist Jason Isbell, tells "a story that's rumored to be true" of two families involved in a passionate intergenerational feud which has gone on so long that few can remember why such hatred exists between them. Isbell wrote the song just three days after joining the band while touring in support of Southern Rock Opera.

Isbell's "Outfit" describes the advice given to him by his own father, advising him, among other things, to have fun but to avoid intravenous drugs, to call home for his sister's birthday, not to sing in a "fake British accent" or to make The Beatles' faux pas and claim to be "bigger than Jesus".

The Dirty South is the fifth album released in 2004. The Dirty South is Drive-By Truckers' second concept album. Like its predecessor, Southern Rock Opera, the album examines the state of the South, and unveils the hypocrisy, irony, and tragedy that continues to exist. Southern Gothic...

"The Sands of Iwo Jima" recounts Hood's experiences with his great uncle while growing up in North Alabama. Questioning the veracity of the movie, his uncle answers he never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima.

The Dirty South is Drive-By Truckers' best-selling album. The Dirty South was recorded at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

In June 2023, the album was re-released as The Complete Dirty South. This new version included three tracks not included on the original album: "Goode's Field Road", "TVA" and "The Great Car Dealer War". Additionally, it features new vocal tracks for "Puttin' People on the Moon" and "The Sands of Iwo Jima" as well as additional remixes.

Mike Cooley – guitar, vocals
Earl Hicks – bass
Patterson Hood – guitar, vocals
Jason Isbell – guitar, vocals
Brad Morgan – drums

Additional Personnel
David Barbe – producer, engineer, mixer, guitar, keyboards, Wurlitzer, upright piano
Scott Danbom – fiddle
Clay Leverett – harmony
John Neff – pedal steel
Spooner Oldham – Wurlitzer, soloist

Sink Hole

I've always been a religious man
I've always been a religious man
But I met the banker and it felt like sin
He turned my bailout down

The banker man lit into me
Lit into me, lit into me
The banker man lit into me
And spread my name around

He thinks I ain't got a lick of sense
'Cause I talk slow and my money's spent
I ain't the type to hold it against
But he better stay off my farm

'Cause it was my daddy's and his daddy's before
And his daddy's before and his daddy's before
Five generations of an unlocked door
And a loaded burglar alarm

Lots of pictures of my purdy family
Lots of pictures of my purdy family
Lots of pictures of my purdy family
In the house where we was born

House has stood through five tornadoes
Droughts and floods and five tornadoes
I'd rather wrastle an alligator
Than to face the banker's scorn

The Sands of Iwo Jima

George A. was at the movies in December '41
They announced in the lobby what had just gone on
He drove up from Birmingham, back to the family's farm
Thought he'd get him a deferment, there's was much work to be done

He was a family man, even in those days
But Uncle Sam decided he was needed anyway
In the South Pacific, over half a world away
He believed in God and Country, things was just that way
Just that way

When I was just a kid, I spent every weekend
On the farm he grew up on, so I guess so did I
And we'd stay up watching movies on the black and white TV
We watched "The Sands of Iwo Jima", starring John Wayne

Every year in June George A. goes to a reunion
Of the men that he served with, and their wives and kids and grandkids
My great uncle used to take me and I'd watch them recollect
About some things that I couldn't comprehend

And I thought about that movie, asked if it was that way
He just shook his head and smiled at me in such a loving way
As he thought about some friends he will never see again
He said, "I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima"

Most of those men are gone now, but he goes still every year
And George A's still doing fine, especially for his years
He's still living on that homestead, in the house that he was born in
And I sure wish I could go see him today

He never drove a new car though he could easily afford it
He'd just buy one for the family, take whatever no one wanted
He said a shiny car didn't mean much after all the things he'd seen
George A. never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima

George A. never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima