Childish Things.James McMurtry James McMurtry (born March 18, 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas) is an American folk music singer-songwriter and the son of novelist Larry McMurtry. James' father gave him his first guitar at age seven. (Compadre Records Compadre Records is a Houston-based independent record label that specializes in roots music. Compadre’s artists include Billy Joe Shaver, Honeybrowne, Suzy Bogguss, Flaco Jimenez, James McMurtry, Hayes Carll, among others. , 2005) Like his father, novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry Larry McMurtry (born June 3, 1936 in Wichita Falls, Texas) is a novelist, screenwriter and essayist. McMurtry is best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 novel Lonesome Dove (Lonesome lone·some adj. 1. a. Dejected because of a lack of companionship. See Synonyms at alone. b. Producing such dejection: a lonesome hour at the bar. 2. Dove, Brokeback Mountain), singer-songwriter James McMurtry tells stories of small prairie towns and the lives they hold. James does it in tough, sharp-edged country-rock recordings. Childish Things is his most recent. Until 2004 McMurtry never considered himself a political artist. His stories of rural life have always contained indirect social commentary. But then something snapped. After years of watching farms foreclosed and factories shut down, McMurtry let out a bitter roar of protest against corporate America and the Bush administration in the seven-minute song "We Can't Make It Here." In the song's lyrics, McMurtry, through the voice of a laid-off factory worker, shows what happens when the economic heart is ripped out of a community. McMurtry wrote that song in the fall of 2004, recorded it hastily hast·y adj. hast·i·er, hast·i·est 1. Characterized by speed; rapid. See Synonyms at fast1. 2. Done or made too quickly to be accurate or wise; rash: a hasty decision. , and put it on his website as a free download in the weeks before the last presidential election. In the following year he re-recorded the tune for Childish Things and deepened his political involvement by joining Cindy Sheehan Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan (born July 10, 1957) is an American anti-war activist, whose son, Casey Sheehan, was killed during his service in the Iraq War on April 4, 2004, aged 24. and Veterans for Peace protesting at President Bush's Crawford, Texas Crawford is a Waco suburb located in western McLennan County, Texas. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 705. The 2005 census estimates Crawford's population at 789.[1] The town was incorporated on August 12, 1897. ranch. Most of the other songs on Childish Things are McMurtry's usual odd, thoughtful snapshots of everyday life. "Memorial Day" captures all the loopy chaos of family outings, and "Bad Enough" freezes that moment when a wandering husband stands on his doorstep afraid to go in. But McMurtry's album begins and ends with the war. In the first track, "See the Elephant," two small-town boys see the coming of war as an adventure. In the last verse of "Holiday," a tired, middle-aged Iowa Guardsman sits in his desert fatigues waiting for the plane that will take him back to Iraq for a second tour. That's life in the heartland these days, and James McMurtry won't let us forget it. |
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