 I first heard David Allan Coe’s “You Never Even Call Me By My Name” as a kid, but did not know much about the man. That song stuck with me not for the “cool” last verse, or the fact David sings the hell out of it. Rather, it was that fourth-wall break. Until that point, I had assumed that every singer wrote their own songs. To learn Steve Goodman wrote that wasn’t quite as a “What? Santa isn’t real?” revelation - but it was close. (John Prine co-wrote it but asked that his name be taken off, by the bye.) Plenty of sources out there will give you a biography of Coe’s life. Plenty of them will have contradicting information. Coe was a contradictory figure. Was he a raging racist? Did he really kill a man in prison and end up on death row? Did he really help pioneer “Outlaw Country” as a genre alongside Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson? Was he even a country boy? Hell if I know. I just know the man was one of my biggest influences as a songwriter, and I respect his work. The novelty stuff is funny when you’re 24, drunk, around friends, and listening to weird, raunchy songs like “Little Susie Shallow Throat” (poor girl!). But his actual real music–beyond the few commercial earworms–is what endeared me so permanently to Coe’s talent. “Fuzzy Was an Outlaw,” “Free-Born Ramblin’ Man,” “Would You Lay with Me (In a Field of Stone),” “Jody Like a Melody,” “Another Pretty Country Song,” “I’ve Got to Have You,” and “I Still Sing the Old Songs” are all fantastic songs that Coe penned. He was also unusually great at cover songs. “Please Come to Boston” (David Loggins), “Hello in There” (John Prine), “These Days” (Jackson Browne), and “Cheap Thrills” (Bob McDill) are all truly beautiful, respectful renditions. As a songwriter in my 20s, with the Internet coming into its own in the early 2000s, I got into more and more of Coe’s music. As the years passed by, I also started hearing many different stories about Coe. Some in the country sphere claim Coe was a charlatan - a man briefly in prison and whose impact on the “Outlaw” genre was negligible, with Coe acting more as a gloomer-on, thorn-in-the-side to more popular artists. Those people claim that songs like “Willie, Waylon, and Me” were just Coe name-dropping to seem relevant. Coe was also very inconsistent about his upbringing, with some of his tales speaking of his father’s polygamy and multiple wives, while other versions, particularly those he wrote into his songs, told the story of a normal–albeit poor and quite sauced–White American post-war family struggling in Ohio (not Texas). Coe was born and raised in Akron, Ohio, by most accounts, which is certainly Yankee land. So, the “My name is David Allan Coe and I’m from Austin, Texas” is a character. His writing about the South rising again, not wanting to go above the Mason-Dixon, etc, are all character work. His raunchy N-word-dropping songs are also songs he claims were all character work. Was it all just character work? Was he a hardened prisoner and an Outlaw pioneer and a man who followed in his father’s footsteps to have multiple wives at once? In all honesty, I don’t think it matters. In today’s modern country, we have plenty of characters. While we might take offense to the “Hick-lib” types who counter-signal and hate us, nobody really ever cared that George Strait was a Pure Pop (not Pure Country) puppet, not a poet. The man has sixty (6-0) #1 hits and did not write a single one of them. He’s the voice, the Stetson, the aesthetic. And nobody cares. That mofo can sing and rock a belt buckle! Hell, I’m somewhat of a character myself with my music. While I write 100% of my own lyrics, and auto-tune my own voice for my tracks, AI does the actual instrumentation work based on the inputs I give it. And I couldn’t care less. I’m getting my music out there. That’s how I feel about Coe. Whatever was or was not true about his life, the music was 100% real. You’d be reading this for two hours if I listed all the fantastic songs Coe wrote. You probably know “Take This Job and Shove It,” “If That Ain’t Country,” and “Longhaired Redneck.” You probably also wouldn’t be offended to learn that Tolkien did not live in Middle Earth and that he made up Lord of the Rings. It doesn’t make it any less excellent that it was fictional, right? Objectively speaking, Coe was tough at nails. Nobody messed with the guy. He had one of the strongest country voices in history. He could write a song. And his part on stage, whether play-acted or his genuine self, was iconic. The man has earned legendary status. Personally, I do not mind even a little that his persona was perhaps a full-time acting gig that rivaled Andy Kaufmann. The songs he wrote and sang were all real. RIP, Mr. Coe.
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