The Band I Didn’t Know I Loved

Last year around April, my boyfriend, Kevin, and I were talking about music and he mentioned that he really liked this band, Old 97s. He didn’t think much about it, so he had no idea that this little comment sparked a million ideas in my head. His birthday was coming up and we had only been together for a couple months, so I had no idea what to get him. He would have probably been happy with a good book and just spending the day with me as a present. But that’s not how I roll. I have always taken birthdays very seriously and I was not about to mess up our first birthday as a couple. I had to set the bar high.

So I started doing some research on the band. They’d been around since before I was born and were still going strong. They started in Texas and are considered one of the pioneers of alt-country. They had some merchandise available on their website, but that felt like a cop-out. They had some vinyls too, but they were all sold out. Turns out, this band was more popular than I thought.

So I tried eBay. No dice. I tried Amazon. No dice. Then I found a second-hand record shop online that claimed to have it, but it was on back-order. I thought, “okay, so I’ll give him a print-out of the receipt and it’ll get here a few weeks late, but it’ll still be the greatest present ever.” So I bought it, printed out the receipt, put it in a book I also bought him for his birthday- a copy of Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, which was the book version of the movie we saw on our third date, because I’m sappy like that- and wrapped it up, all ready for his birthday.

His birthday comes and he opens his present. He loves the book, but the face he makes when he opens it and finds the receipt is a face that I remember to this day, over a year later. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so shocked and overjoyed. He couldn’t wait until it got here.

But weeks went by and it didn’t show it. After a month, I called up the website and they said it was still on back-order and they didn’t know when it would come. But, they weren’t going to charge me for it until it shipped, so I wasn’t too mad about it. Months passed and we both kinda forgot about it.

A year later, he tells me that Old 97s are playing at Irving Plaza and that his aunt got him two tickets to the concert for his birthday, and asks if I want to go with him. I don’t really know their music, but I go anyway because, hey, free concert. We get there and I notice there’s something unusual about the crowd, but it takes me a moment to figure out why: I’m very obviously the youngest person in the room. Like I said, this band formed in 1993, three years before I was born.

“What’s so great about the barrier reef?
What’s so fine about art?
What’s so good about a Good Times van?
When you’re working on a broken, working on a broken
Working on a broken man.”

-Old 97’s, “Barrier Reef”

The concert started with a solo singer, Nicole Atkins, and, holy crap, I have never been so impressed by an opening act in my life. She had this gorgeous velvety alto voice that also somehow belted into a higher register flawlessly. I could have just watched her the whole time and been totally content. She finished with a cover of Roy Orbison’s “Crying,” with the disco ball going and brought the house down. If you want to hear her, click here.

A little while later, Old 97s came on and the strangest thing started happening: I was singing along. How the hell did I know the lyrics and the melodies? Turns out, Old 97s were on Kevin’s go-to shower playlist, getting dressed playlist, cooking playlist, and just regular hanging out playlist. He would constantly be playing music when we were together and I never thought to ask who the band was. If I had, nine times out of ten, he would have said, “Old 97s.” Turns out, I was a huge fan of the band and I didn’t even know it. Click here for a link to one of their music videos.

“I must live in this confusion
I must love to be confused
I must strike out in the darkness
Buy some time both new and used”

-Old 97s, “All Who Wander”

So, of course, I started listening to them more and more and fell even more in love, especially with their lyrics. They range from lyrics about drinking whiskey and hitting on pretty girls to lyrics about existential depression. They’re alt-country, but they have something for everyone and for every mood. It also helps that they’ve got a cute frontman with great hair and an adorable graying bass player. Finally, I became an official fan of the Old 97s, and about a month later, the vinyl showed up on my front door, over a year later.

“Thank God for Irish whiskey
Thank the Devil for pretty girls
Make a mess of all us lucky boys”

-Old 97s, “Irish Whiskey Pretty Girls”

I could gush for hours about how much I love this band, their melodies, and their lyrics, but I’d rather just show you…

 

-Marie Pruitt