{"id":2282,"date":"2013-09-14T23:15:13","date_gmt":"2013-09-15T03:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nowthissound.com\/ntsib\/?p=2282"},"modified":"2014-02-06T21:00:05","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T02:00:05","slug":"late-night-listening-robbie-fulks-gone-away-backwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nowthissound.com\/ntsib\/2013\/09\/14\/late-night-listening-robbie-fulks-gone-away-backwards\/","title":{"rendered":"Late Night Listening: Robbie Fulks, Gone Away Backwards"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Robbie<\/a>

Robbie Fulks – Photo credit: Dino Stamatopoulos<\/p><\/div>\n

I don’t know what it is about this record that encourages listening to it in the middle of the night, but that’s when I keep coming back to it: at the end of the day, and in the late\/small hours. <\/p>\n

I have a suspicion it might be the fiddle, though. I do like a fiddle late at night. (Actually I like a fiddle all the time.) And the lyrics, which have some bite, a little more so than country lyrics usually do. <\/p>\n

And this is definitely a country record. Its roots are sunk deep, way past the current topsoil of pop-country, into the bedrock of the open fields and rocky hills of the genre. <\/p>\n

It’s also a little bit of commentary on how the genre of country has changed, along with the culture, and, in the case of That’s Where I’m From<\/i> and Sometimes The Grass Is Really Greener<\/i>, how where you are from makes you who you really are.<\/p>\n

Which, as I prepare to go back to the place where I grew up to visit with people I haven’t seen in 20 years, is probably the real reason I keep circling back to listen to these songs again and again.<\/p>\n

It is, in summary, the kind of record that encourages both serious thinking and singing along.<\/p>\n

Here are two tracks from the record, so you can hear what I mean:<\/p>\n

Long I Ride<\/i> is a meditative examination of bad decisions with fast-picking and harmonica:
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