Billy Joe Shaver

If you're a country music fan, and I mean real country music and not that faggotty long-haired untucked-shirt boy band fake country bullshit like half the crap on the country stations today, you need to catch Billy Joe Shaver at one of his current concerts. Or even if you're not.

He's written songs that have been sung by Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson, among others, and continues to write songs that tell great stories.

In addition to some of his standards, he tells stories that are rambling accounts of dead wives and a dead son, religion, a struggle to live, addiction, and salvation. Some are clearly better than others, but all are good and all can cause some serious introspection if you're listening to the words.

My particular favorite--his new song about shooting a man in the head when a bar fight got out of hand. When you look at this guy, you have to wonder with as frail as he looks (he may not be around too much longer folks, so go see him while you can), why in the hell was he fighting anyone at all? When he was asked by the prosecutor--on the stand--why he didn't retreat when the fight escalated, he responded "Ma'am, if I was chickenshit I would have. But this is Texas. And I'm not." And he was acquitted anyway.

One of the strangest things about the night was that I counted at least four songs with strong allusions to God, or Jesus, if not being completely about Christianity, and sandwiched right in the middle of them was the song about shooting a man in the head. And he sang every one of them without a hint of irony. Without a single inclination that the songs might be the least bit conflicting. God bless Texas, I guess.

Go see this guy.