[Intro Single acoustic guitar, fingerpicked, open G tuning. A harmonica plays a single note, held. Voice warm, slightly dusty.],[Spoken Word:] "Some people will tell you punk and country have nothing in common. Those people have never listened to either genre. Both are about drinking, losing, and telling the world to go to hell. So put on your boots. Both kinds." [Verse 1 Full band enters. Twangy electric guitar, reverb-heavy. Upright bass, slapped and plucked. Drums, simple and steady. Vocals, sneered but melodic.] I woke up this morning in a town that forgot my name The railroad tracks are rusted, nothing rolling on them trains The factory closed in '89, the sign fell down last spring But the bar is still open, and the jukebox still can sing I got a woman who left me, a dog that ran away A pickup truck that won't start on a cold or rainy day I got forty dollars in my boot and twenty in my sock And a pistol in the glovebox in case the jukebox starts to rock [Pre-Chorus Pedal steel enters, crying over the chorus build. Drums build intensity.] hey say that punk is city, they say that country's small They say the two should never meet, should build a fucking wall But pain don't know the difference between a farm and a street And desperation sounds the same in leather boots or feet [Chorus Full band, pedal steel crying, guitars twanging, drums pounding. Vocals shouted, anthemic] This is cow-punk, this is the twang The steel guitar, the leather fang This is cow-punk, this is the dust The broken heart, the broken trust This is cow-punk, this is the ride With nothing left to lose inside This is cow-punk, yeehaw and fuck you too The saddest songs are still the truest ones, and that's the truth [Verse 2] The Gun Club in 1981, Jeffrey Lee Pierce's howl Mixing blues and country with a punk rock scowl "Sex Beat" and "She's Like Heroin to Me" The ghost of Hank Williams running through the debris Rank and File in Austin, the brothers Kinman knew That punk and country both were just a different point of view They wore the cowboy hats, they played the Telecaster twang And every punk in California learned a brand new way to hang [Pre-Chorus] They say it's cultural appropriation, they say it's not sincere But try telling that to Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison's fear Or X in LA, Exene and John trading lines Country and punk colliding, crossing all the lines [Choruds] This is cow-punk, this is the ride With nothing left to lose inside This is cow-punk, yeehaw and fuck you too The saddest songs are still the truest ones, and that's the truth [Bridge: Music pulls back to just acoustic guitar and upright bass. close, warm.],[Spoken Word:] "In 1986, a band called The Long Riders released an album called 'The Long Riders.' They covered Woody Guthrie. They covered Hank Williams. They covered punk songs too, slowed them down, made them cry. The punk kids didn't get it. The country kids didn't get it. But the kids who'd been both—the kids who'd left the farm for the city, the kids who'd fled the city for the desert—they got it. They knew that pain doesn't have a zip code. They knew that a broken heart sounds the same whether you're screaming it or singing it through a whiskey glass." [Pedal steel solo, 24 bars. Crying, bending, weeping. The steel guitar takes the melody, playing something between a country weeper and a punk sneer. Drums play soft, brushes on snare. Upright bass walks. Electric guitar comps quietly. The solo builds, peaks, then recedes.] [Verse 3] Social Distortion in '90, Mike Ness found his way From Orange County hardcore to the country songs he'd play "Story of My Life" and "Ball and Chain" Proved that punk and country shared the same blood in the vein Meadows in Norfolk, The Supersuckers too Built to Spill covers country, and you know that's true Because the heart of punk rock is the heart of country too Three chords and the truth, man, that's all you gotta do [Pre-Chorus] So put away your genre wars, put away your pride The highway's long and lonely, and we're all just along for the ride From Bakersfield to Berkeley, from Austin to DC The sound of desperation is the same, and it sounds like you and me [Chorus] This is cow-punk, this is the ride With nothing left to lose inside This is cow-punk, yeehaw and fuck you too The saddest songs are still the truest ones, and that's the truth [Outro Band strips away. Pedal steel fades first. Drums go to just kick and snare, then stop. Electric guitar fades. Upright bass holds a note, then fades. Single acoustic guitar remains, fingerpicked, open G, playing a simple pattern], [Spoken Word:] "In 1953, Hank Williams died in the back seat of a Cadillac on the way to a show in Ohio. He was 29 years old. In 1977, Sid Vicious died in a heroin overdose in New York. He was 21. They never met. But I think they'd have understood each other." [Acoustic guitar plays final phrase],[Spoken Word:] "Class dismissed. Drive safe—Or, don't... —That's country too..."
