Jerry Joseph – This Beautiful Madness
Cosmo Sex School/ Soundly Music (US)/Décor Records/El Cortez (Europe) – 21 August 2020
It’s a mystery that almost no one has heard of Jerry Joseph. He’s been recording forever and This Beautiful Madness contains an hours worth of the best music you’d ever want to hear, with The Stiff Boys (actually the current edition of Drive-By Truckers) serving as the backing band. Recorded at Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Mississippi with Patterson Hood at the controls, this is an album that borders on a masterpiece.
The first notes of Days of Heaven let you know that you’re listening to something special. The title comes from the Terrence Malick film, but the lyrics come from a number of places. The opening lines come from Joseph’s own experience of writing the song at his brother’s house in Mexico where he was told to keep a gun by his side just in case the drug gangs tried to start something, “Well back down on this porch, singing to myself/ With my brother’s .45/ Puttin’ down the torch, surrender to the swell/ I’m ready for the dyin’.”
The stately pace of Bone Tower belies the death throes of a relationship that has gone past its expiration date. The Stiff Boys play it with style and grace while Joseph recounts, “I see these monuments to lost places/ Waving the signal flag and trying to break through/ The cries of strangers and strange places/ I never thought the stranger was you.” The imagery comes from structures of unfinished skyscrapers left to rot after the fall of Saddam Hussein that Joseph has seen during plenty of time he has spent in the Middle East.
Ranting like a madman about a world no longer makes the slightest amount of sense, Sugar Smacks opens with a buzzing that is replaced by the band pounding out the desolation. And that’s before the lyrics begin unravelling the litany of horrors, from Himalayan Monks with digital porn to Banksy murals in Jerusalem. Over seven minutes this song does not so much unfold as get wretched up from the bile of the past few years, with the final lines recounting, “Where in God’s name did I put my soul?/ I’d like to give it to you baby so you can keep it whole, keep it safe/ While go back searching for my Sugar Smacks.”
Following that fever dream, we get Joseph’s Dead Confederate, where, posing as a southern statute he recounts the indignities of being torn down. From the statue’s point of view, this is the eeriest of visions, one that’s impossible to listen to without understanding both the ugliness and horror in those lines. Written almost four years ago, this is a vision brought into more vivid focus because of Black Lives Matter. As Joseph explains in an interview, “The statue is singing from the point of being proud of his cause. I thought I could make it ugly enough that no one would think I’m identifying with it. Most southerners don’t get that image. They’re pulling him down and putting him in the dust bin of history, which is where he belongs.”
Make no mistake The Beautiful Madness is a record that demands to be heard. Thanks to Patterson Hood and The Drive-By Truckers, Jerry Joseph has created nothing short of a masterpiece. This is a candidate for Album of the Year. Period.
Jerry Joseph will be joining the Drive-By Truckers on their 2021 European tour, in addition to supporting The Delines, dates below.
February 21 – Glasgow – St Lukes (supporting the Delines)
February 22 – Newcastle – Gosforth Civic Theatre (supporting the Delines)
February 23 – Pocklington Arts Centre (supporting the Delines)
February 24 – Bury – The Met (supporting the Delines)
February 25 – Nottingham –Metronome(supporting the Delines)
February 26 – London – Union Chapel (supporting the Delines)
February 28 – Bristol – The Fleece (supporting the Delines)
May 29 – Leeds – Stylus (supporting the Drive-by Truckers)
May 30 – Dublin – Vicar St (supporting the Drive-by Truckers)
June 1 – Glasgow – SWG3 Studio (supporting the Drive-by Truckers)
June 2 – London – The Forum (supporting the Drive-by Truckers)
June 3 – Brighton – Chalk (supporting the Drive-by Truckers)
The Beautiful Madness is out now – Order via Amazon