(One of a series of essays on each song from ‘The Foundry EP.’)
You see, we’re not really giving up redheads.
That’s a piece of irony (or what have you).
Yes, there was a redhead who was once not kind and we took that and ran with it past the point of reason for this song. I was obsessed with Sun Records when I wrote this song, and it’s not far from Sonny Burgess and Elvis Presley territory, with a little added grit (we hope). It also takes the idea that you can be wicked and funny with a grain of truth from the great outlaw country of Merle Haggard and David Allen Coe. We ride a Memphis train beat as far as it can take us. This is about as tongue-in-cheek as they come. As I see it, Leland Sundries seems to play two types of songs that are really the same: dark indie-folk and sarcastic rockabilly. But the thing is that both are imagery-driven and both have a certain amount of desperation in their characters, who mostly don’t really fit in with anybody.
Micah played the guitar solo when he was sick as a dog and we asked him to start out with a “Folsom Prison Blues” vibe and end up in Deer Tick territory. Meanwhile, we kept the vocal track from our demo because it had a casual feeling that we liked. There’s a bass line during the solos that we stole from David “Honeyboy” Edwards.
To answer your questions: Yes, there was a hot, redheaded vixen. No, she was not evil, maybe just a little misguided. Yes, she’s heard the song and no, she doesn’t like it.
-Nick
