Twenty Greatest Albums of the CU Era: Jason Isbell, Southeastern

Jason Isbell

Southeastern

2013

Few contemporary myths are as nihilistic as the belief that artists must be tortured in order to be great. It robs artists of their very humanity and insists that their value only comes through self-destruction and a life that’s both short and painful. Moreover, it reduces art to a commodity produced by a disposable underclass, easily replaced once the old model burns out or overdoses.

Southeastern is one of the most powerful rebuttals to that myth. Jason Isbell, from his formative days as a member of Drive-By Truckers through an early solo career that established his singular voice as a songwriter, was widely-known to be a problematic drinker. But he fell in love with a woman– the brilliant Amanda Shires– who inspired him to swear off that stuff, forever this time. That hard-won journey to sobriety was the impetus for Southeastern, the album that broke Isbell to a wide audience and established him as the artist Silas House dubbed, “The Poet Laureate of the New South.”

What Isbell does so beautifully and with such deep empathy on this album is drill into a wide range of difficult circumstances– the cancer diagnosis of “Elephant,” the murder at “Live Oak,” the business-end of a baseball bat on “Super 8”– that can keep people on a path toward self-destruction. But then he presents how intimate human connection can be an alternative path. Instead of vice, he seeks companionship when he’s “grown tired of traveling alone,” celebrates how the land of “New South Wales” seemed to listen to the stories he and a friend shared, and makes it clear he has no intention of dying in that particular fleabag hotel.

For as difficult as he can be on social media at times, Isbell’s career arc has been about the power of redemption. He might punch down at bigots and incels, but his songs lay bare his primary motivation: For people to make choices to do and be better. He’s hurt others, and he’s hurt himself, and he knows that very few of us are beyond the redemptive sway of love, forgiveness, and compassion. Those values represent country music– represent humanity– at its best, and they’re what make Southeastern a landmark album.

Additional Listening:

A Blessing And a Curse, Isbell’s last record with the Drive-By Truckers and– perhaps a hot take here– far and away the band’s best album, among many great ones, of the last twenty years.
Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, on which he assembled the ace backing band that would support him for most of his work moving forward, and on which he really pushed himself to use different first-person narrative voices.
I wouldn’t put up much of an argument to anyone who said Something More Than Free is even better than Southeastern. Splitting hairs, really, when someone’s flying at such altitude.
Weathervanes, with standout tracks like “King of Oklahoma” and “Cast Iron Skillet,” is another triumph of empathy and connection.