Ten Favorite City Vs. Country (City) Songs: Sin City (#2)

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Some songs espouse city life, and some espouse country life. Most of these songs don't, but they do have "city" or "country" in the title, so I'm counting them down. Here's my second-favorite "city" song. #2: Sin City - Flying Burrito Brothers Apparently it wasn't a good idea to make Gram Parsons mad. Ralph Emery dissed the Byrds after they "went country" following Parsons joining the band and heavily influencing the now-classic Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. In response, Parsons and Roger McGuinn wrote "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man," a scathing attack on Emery ("he plays country records till you've had your fill...but he sure does think different from the records he plays"). "Sin City" was also an attack of sorts, on Byrds manager Larry Spector. "Spector was a thief," co-writer Chris Hillman told the L.A. Times, "it was as simple as that. And his condo, he lived on the 31st floor behind this awful, garish gold door." That inspired the chorus' closing line, "On the 31st floor, your gold-plated door won't keep out the Lord's burning rain." (They actually sang "a gold plated door" instead of "your gold plated door" in the recording, apparently to keep lawsuits at bay.) Part of what makes this song so spectacular is that, unless you have read the background about the story, you'd never know that....and it wouldn't diminish the song one iota. Inspired by the Louvin Brothers (the harmonies make that clear, as did the Byrds' cover of "The Christian Life" on Sweetheart of the Rodeo), this song could easily be an Ira Louvin-style "sermon" song thanks to its religious overtones ("this old town's filled with sin, it'll swallow you in....Satan is waiting his turn"). It also speaks of "a friend" who "came around, tried to clean up this town" who might be a preacher run out of town on the rails by the denizens of "sin city" (which, for the record, in this song is Los Angeles, not Las Vegas). In reality, that verse is about Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in L.A. the year before this song was released. But, as I said, you don't need to know any of this to appreciate this is one of the great classics in country-rock. Sin City Written by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman Recorded by the Flying Burrito Brothers From The Gilded Palace of Sin, 1969 This ol' earthquake's gonna leave me in the poor house: