I love lists of best things, although I usually disagree with the list compilers' recommendations. Over the last few days, I perused several lists, and all were flawed.
Inside Hook posted a list of "72 Books Every Man Should Read." I scanned it twice and realized I hadn't read any of them. That list is no good to me.
Food and Wine published a list of the top ten barbecue restaurants, but only two were in Texas, so that list is bogus.
And today, the New York Times presented a list of the 21st century's 10 best movies, and The Guard, starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle, wasn't on it. So you know that list is total bullshit.
Not long ago, I compiled a list of the ten best songs about Texas, and today, I'm releasing my list of the ten best songs about Texas towns.
1. Dallas from a DC 9 at Night, written by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, is the stand-alone best song about a Texas city. I lived in Dallas for six years and love the town (great hamburgers), but Jimmie Dale captures a distinct coldness in the city perfectly. Here's a sample:
Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes
A steel and concrete soul with a warm-hearted love disguise
A rich man who tends to believe in his own lies
Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes
2. San Antonio Rose, the signature song of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, captures the magic of Texas Swing music during the 1930s when the people of Texas danced to forget about the miseries of the Great Depression. Patsy Cline's version is probably the most famous, but the song has been recorded by a host of artists, including Bing Crosby and Clint Eastwood. The lyrics have a mystical quality:
Deep within my heart lies a melody
A song of old San Antone
Where in dreams I live with a memory
Beneath the stars all alone
3. 11 Months and 29 Days, a Johnny Paycheck tune, tells the tale of a guy who gets arrested in Austin and sentenced to a year in the Huntsville penitentiary. His advice to his friends is timeless:
Keep the Lone Star cold
And the dance floor hot while I'm gone
Keep the Lone Star cold
And the dance floor hot while I'm gone, hey now
Keep your hands off my woman
I ain't gonna be gone that long
4. Telephone Road, an ode to Houston's honky tonk district, may be my favorite Texas song. Back in the day, Telephone Road was where the refinery workers went to dance and drink beer. During my sad sojourn at the University of Houston, I often ate lunch at a Telephone Road hamburger joint or Mexican restaurants. Nothing like a plate of enchiladas and a Modelo to cheer you up after being waterboarded at a faculty meeting.
Steve Earle's lyrics capture the vitality of Houston's blue-collar culture:
Come on, come on
Come on, let's go
This ain't Louisiana
Your mama won't know
Come on, come on
Come on, let's go
Here everybody's rockin'
Out on Telephone Road
5. El Paso, one of Marty Robbins's famous ballads, is about a cowboy who gets in a gunfight over "Wicked Felina," whom he loves unaccountably. The cowboy shoots his rival, rides off into the Badlands of New Mexico, and then returns to El Paso to die from a bullet from a posse member's rifle. All ends well, however, because Felina finds him and he dies in her arms.
A sample from Marty Robbins's baroque and bathetic lyrics:
From out of nowhere, Felina has found me kissing my cheek as she kneels by my side Cradled by two loving arms that I'll die for. One little kiss and Felina, goodbye
6. Corpus Christi Bay, a profound song written by Robert Earle Keane, is a story about a young oil rig worker who can't stop drinking. He carouses with his brother for a time, but his brother wises up after his wife and children leave him. Several people have covered this song, but perhaps Johnny Rodriguez sings it best. Here is a snippet from the song's depressing story:
[My brother] came to Corpus just this weekend.
It was good to see him here.
He said he finally gave up drinking.Then he ordered me a beerIf I could live my life all over
It wouldn't matter anyway.
'Cause I never could stay sober
On the Corpus Christi Bay
Amarillo by mornin'
Up from San Antone
Everything that I got
It's just what I've got on
When that Sun is high
In that Texas sky
I'll be buckin' at the county fair
Amarillo by mornin'
Amarillo, I'll be there
8. Home in San Antone is on my list because San Antonio, the oldest Texas city, deserves two top-10 songs. Although others have sung it, Home in San Antone is a Bob Wills song that articulates the genial patriotism that most Texans feel for their state. These lyrics assure us that we'll be okay, even if we're broke, so long as we own a little piece of San Antonio real estate:
Haven't got a worry, haven't got a care
Haven't got a thing to call my own
Tho' I'm out of money, I'm a millionaire.
I still have my home in San Antone.
When I greet my neighbor with a howdy all,
I'm wealthy as a king upon a throne.
You can have your mansion or a cottage small
I'll just take my home in San Antone
9. Cross the Brazos at Waco, like Marty Robbins's El Paso, is a song about a gunman who tries to give up a violent life to be with his sweetheart, but repents too late. He promises his darling that he'll ride from Waco to San Antonio and arrive at dawn, which is impossible since the towns are a hundred miles apart:
Cross the Brazos at Waco
Ride hard,and I'll make it by dawn
Cross the Brazos at Waco.
I'm safe when I reach San Antone
10. Fort Worth Blues, by Robert Earle, is the last song on my Top 10 list. Did Robert really mean it when he said Paris was never his kind of town? Maybe he was referring to Paris, Texas.
Amsterdam was always good for grieving, And London never fails to leave me blue.Paris never was my kinda town,So I walked aroundWith the Ft. Worth Blues