Ten Favorite Soldier Songs: Copperhead Road (#5)

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I'll get you all the details of that concert last night in a little while. Super honkin' thumbs up, I'll give you that for a spoiler. Meanwhile, now that I'm all rested up (I spent the day in Lexington, so I didn't get my middle-age nap, then I got home at 1:30 AM), here's another song from my list of favorite songs dealing with soldiers. The idea came from @TRBRocks420 's idea to highlight his favorite "Patriotic/America" songs. Here's the next song on the list. #5: Copperhead Road - Steve Earle "This is probably the first heavy metal song written on a mandolin." That's how Steve Earle introduced the song when I saw him premiere it in concert when he was on the Exit 0 tour in 1987. It became the title song to his follow-up to that album, 1988's Copperhead Road. This more or less took Earle out of "country" music and into Americana. It doesn't really matter if you call it "country," "heavy metal on a mandolin," or American, this is a great song. This is the story of John Lee Pettimore III, a Vietnam veteran who comes from a long line of bootleggers. After explaining how his grandfather and father succeeded as moonshiners before him, Pettimore tells how he carries on the tradition: by growing pot. Earle doesn't get into the details, but rather just implies the plights of veterans trying to find jobs ("they draft the white trash first around here, anyway") and the PTSD ("the DEA's got a chopper in the air, I wake up screaming like I'm back over there"). As the first verse ends with the hint of death for "the revenue man" who went hunting for Pettimore Senior on Copperhead Road, his grandson recalls it with a not-too-subtle hint: "I learned a thing or two from Charlie, don't you know, you'd better stay away from Copperhead Road." Earle (who is not a veteran) has another good song about Vietnam veterans on that album, "Johnny Come Lately," again dealing with generational differences -- this time between how the World War II grandfather was celebrated as "a hero throughout this land" and how the Vietnam vet grandfather arrives with "a couple of Purple Hearts" to an empty airport. Put them together and they'll tell you a gripping story that played out for too many veterans of the Vietnam War. Copperhead Road Written by Steve Earle Recorded by Steve Earle From Copperhead Road, 1988 I take the seed from Columbia and Mexico: