Iris Dement at Cat's Cradle June 28

Iris Dement, one of the very best singer songwriters of our day, will be paying at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro on June 28. I don't know if it's sold out. Last time she was there it was standing room only. I'm going with my daughter Heather, who went with me last time, two summers ago. I wrote a review of that concert on this blog, and would be most honored if you would read it.

For some Iris Dement is an acquired taste. I fell for her in an instant on the way home from church one day when I turned on Prairie Home Companion, and heard that voice. It's hard to know what genre to place her in - folk, alt-country, old-country. She has a high twangy singing voice for sure. Her songs are simple, but real, SO real, and she has a gift for turn of phrase and melody. She has a wry mischievous smile and a wonderful rhythmic southern speaking drawl. There is a melancholy streak in her music (as with mist good song writers). One just senses she has suffered more than her share in this life and knows of what she writes.

You can get a taste of her music at http://www.irisdement.com/mp3s.html. There are also several clips of her on You Tube.

Look, I'm a rocker, so if I like this twangy songwriter from the other side of the Ozarks, then she must be good! And for all you left leaning types out there, she has written one of the very best protest songs since the sixties - it's called Wasteland of the Free. It's not quite War Pigs, but it's good! I've pasted the lyrics below.

If you'd like to download ten songs from iTunes to get a feel for her music, and have a nice CD to boot, I might suggest the following:

Sweet Is the Melody - from My Life
Our Town - from Infamous Angel
When My Morning Comes Around - from The Way I Should (tissues needed)
Easy's Getting Harder Every Day - from My Life
He Reached Down - from Lifeline
I'll Take My Sorrow Straight - from The Way I Should
These Hills - from Infamous Angel (the first song of hers I heard - on PHC)
My Life - from My Life
Wasteland of the Free - from The Way I Should
No Time to Cry - from My Life

And if you have five more bucks to fill up a CD...

God Walks the Dark Hills - from Lifeline
You've Done Nothing Wrong - from My Life
Mama's Opry - from Infamous Angel
Calling for You - from My Life
Trouble - from The Way I Should (with Delbert McClinton)

Here are the lyrics to "Living In the Wasteland of the Free"

We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines
and their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ's disciples
but they don't look like Jesus to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got politicians running races on corporate cash
Now don't tell me they don't turn around and kiss them peoples' ass
You may call me old-fashioned
but that don't fit my picture of a true democracy
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got CEO's making two hundred times the workers' pay
but they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
and If you don't like it, mister, they'll ship your job
to some third-world country 'cross the sea
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars
So what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors
and we call ourselves the advanced civilization
that sounds like crap to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We got high-school kids running 'round in Calvin Klein and Guess
who cannot pass a sixth-grade reading test
but if you ask them, they can tell you
the name of every crotch on MTV
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight, and we call that the sin
but he's standing up for what he believes in
and that seems pretty damned American to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free

Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let's blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free

While we sit gloating in our greatness
justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free