1001 Albums Summary

Essential piece of country music history, I grew up on many of these songs and the electricity and chaos of hearing them at a show like that really just makes them all that much more dear. This album is though, more importantly, an invaluable anti-carceral document. The degree to which we have dehumanized incarcerated people is brought into harsh focus by evidence of when it didn’t use to be like that. Not that prison has been good or effective at any point, but whoa holy shit what do you mean this abolitionist artist was doing shows IN PRISONS? WHAT DO YOU MEAN?? Listening to him talk to them like peers, like they’re just playing in a bar? Bringing music and levity and respect to these people who are being very explicitly denied those things? That made me cry hard a couple times in and of itself, culminating in his performing San Quentin (which I forgot he had written the night before?!) the cheering is so loud and they play it twice in a row :’) I just think we could all stand to be reminded more frequently of our history. We consider the past barbaric in a way we’ve improved on, but that’s just not the case. As the technology to punish people has advanced, we have applied it to our carceral system at every turn, and we’ve lost the plot of our humanity entirely. People have always been people. And everyone alive deserves dignity.

not a genre I gravitate toward but I love a goth club vibe, I’m never mad at it. Found myself not paying attention to the lyrics and more just enjoying the atmosphere the sound created. Gonna go read them to see what I missed🫡