Laughing to Keep from Crying on the Latest from Amigo

At its best, country music is tragicomic.

Think about it: that’s why a good honky-tonk songwriter can write about the heaviest, bleakest subject imaginable without toppling the listener under the weight. They know how to wink at the listener, how to crack a smile or drop an irreverent joke in between heartbreakers.

This can come in the form of Emmylou Harris pairing Chuck Berry’s happy-go-lucky teenage wedding tune with the stunningly direct Dolly Parton duet “When I Stop Dreaming” on Luxury Liner. It can come in the form of Waylon and Willie making wry light of addiction in “I Can Get Off on You,” the shameless fun of their version of “Don’t Cuss the Fiddle,” or even the playful “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys,” all on the same LP. Then there’s Johnny Cash, who jury-rigged an entire car in “One Piece at a Time.” Modern artists, of course, do it too: Sarah Shook is the primary target of her own twisted humor (“God don’t make mistakes / he just makes fuck-ups”).

Amigo, then, is in good company. This Charlotte, NC, country-rock trio is very funny, and almost sneakily substantial. On a casual listen, Amigo’s new And Friends simply sounds like easygoing country-rock with a penchant for boogie. Pay a little more attention, though, and be rewarded with staggeringly funny — and ultimately dark — lyrics.

“Cigarettes take minutes off the ends of people’s lifetime / while vegetables add days to the painful cancer years,” songwriter Slade Baird sings on “Bless Your Heart,” almost cheerful in his delivery. “Bless your heart / take that the wrong way.” This is Amigo’s territory. On paper, these phrases do not look lyrical at all, yet Baird fits them to infectious melodies and delivers them casually, almost offhandedly.

Like the best tragicomedies, Amigo’s brand of humor assuages the insoluble existential terror we all know too well.  Consider “Bless Your Heart:” no one appreciates a properly bleak cancer joke quite like someone with cancer (such as the writer of this review). If you can make light of something that monolithic, powerful, and lethal, it seems a little less terrifying — and you gain an illusion of control in the process. Elsewhere on the album, Baird simply sings, “I wanna live / because I don’t wanna die.” Irreverent humor and honest fear walk hand-in-hand on And Friends.

Thematically, Amigo is a direct descendant of Lyle Lovett, the master of the bizarrely funny country song. The creepy veteran in Lovett’s “Pontiac” or his assertion that “fat babies have no pride” would be right at home on And Friends, though this is not Lovett’s genteel, jazz-infused Texas country. Amigo, rather, bounces along like a Southern beach party soundtrack, thanks in part to drummer Adam Phillips’ propulsive bounce on the boogie tunes and tasteful restraint on the laid-back numbers. Elsewhere, hand percussion lends a relaxing Southwestern flavor, such as on “(When I Fool) You (Into) Loving Me (Again).” “Making plans, taking chances / give this thing another shot,” Baird sings, setting up a deadpan punchline. “What’s to stop us if we’re both single? / and even if we’re not.”

Consistently, Baird sings with the unassuming affability of a good friend after, say, two mid-afternoon beers, the kind of person who’ll lean in, cop a devilish grin, and say “The kids are cool / the kids are weird / I’m not convinced that they’re sincere / but those old clothes we like are back in style again.” And these are the kinds of people we trust with weighty concerns — cancer, death, aging out of relevance — because we know they’ll try and make us feel better without discounting our very real fears.