My Top 20 Robbie Fulks Songs: That's Where I'm From (#2)

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Closing out the list of countdowns for the night is my look at my favorite songs by one of my favorite songwriters, Robbie Fulks. I've reached the penultimate song, and this one is sort of a lie. #2: That's Where I'm From I say "sort of a lie" because I think this is a better song than #1, but I've never seen him do my favorite song of his. And, honestly, my #1 favorite song has been my #1 favorite song for 15 years, so it's hard to let the song relinquish its hold on the top spot. But oh, this song. Partly autobiographical (in the sense that it describes a man who went from a hard country childhood to a successful suburban life in adulthood) and partly Fulks' ever-fertile imagination (he mentioned on his old web site that the only thing that was absolutely true in this song was the line about "the mean billy goat on a chain"), "That's Where I'm From" is a bittersweet song about growing up, reminiscing about childhood, and trying to decipher if it really was as good as memories claim. In the first verse he's comfortable in his suburban house in the neighborhood of identical houses, then begins to think of the journey to this point. "I can see in my mind's eye a shack on a hillside and a mean billy goat on a chain, and dad doing battle with dirt hard as gravel, and the summers the crops never came." Quite a contrast, but he sides with the old ways: "that's where I'm from, where it's 'yes, 'ma'am' and 'no, sir.'" That is, until the end, where, despite the fact that a Hank Williams song is "the whole blessed thing" regarding being country, he sadly says it's "some place I can't go home to." It's a masterful song. Maybe it hits me hard because I'm a southerner and I cherish that upbringing. Maybe it's just the incredible lyrics. Whatever it is, this song never fails to make me cry every time I see Robbie sing it live. Maybe that's because I've heard Hank Williams sing. Or maybe because that's where I'm from, too. That's Where I'm From Written by Robbie Fulks From Gone Away Backward, 2013 (originally on 50 Vc. Doberman, 2010) Robbie performing "That's Where I'm From" in his old hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina: