Playlist: Big Thief’s 16 favourite country songs
Big Thief have spearheaded the modern reinvention of indie folk. Pairing Adrienne Lenker’s devastating lyrics with intricate guitar soundscapes, they’ve forged gorgeous modern indie classics with ‘Paul’ and ‘Shark Smile’. Alongside peers Boygenius and Sufjan Stevens, they’ve become one of the most important names in the genre.
At the same time, vocalists Lenker and Buck Meek have also been releasing collaboratively as soloists, forging a softer folk sound. Their partnership is unparalleled, fusing influences from across rock, country and folk and injecting them with folklore and gut-wrenching emotion. Their seemingly effortless collaborative relationship may be down to their shared musical interests, including country.
Speaking with Pitchfork, Lenker once shared her love for country-folk singer John Prine and his ability to combine the funny with the serious. It’s an element she’s emulated in her own music, and one she seeks out in a good country song. She explains, “I gotta feel something deep in my guts. It’s gotta make me cry, or feel like making love, or want to dance. I have to be able to hear it and be transported from wherever I am. It has to be strong. That’s my own gauge.”
It’s no surprise, then, that she takes inspiration from folk and country, two of the most emotive and strong genres in music. Explaining how this plays into her own vulnerable songwriting, she shared, “I can’t sing anything that I don’t feel fully. It doesn’t even feel like a choice, honestly. I just can’t act. There’s so much lukewarm music. It’s hard for me to listen to music that doesn’t grab my heart and shake me.”
Meek has also spoken about the influence of historic folk and country music on his own output, stemming from his youth spent in Texas. He shared the experience with Clash, admitting, “I can’t help but integrate those melodies, and that sense of syncopation and that lilt, and the humour and complex storylines and tragedies that you find in country music – I think it’s all just embedded in my psyche from being raised in that world to a certain degree.”
Meek and Lenker were both fascinated by the genre’s ability to combine the humorous and the tragic, something they have incorporated into their modern revamp of the genre. Combined with Meek’s experimental background after he made the move to New York and Lenker’s love of Elliott Smith’s indie folk, the sound of Big Thief was born – an amalgamation of country, rock, and folk.
Still, the band’s love for country remains, and Meek paid tribute to it on BBC Radio 6 by collating a playlist of 16 of his favourite tracks from the genre. From Hank Williams to The Flatlanders, find the full list of songs below. And we’ve wrapped them up in a playlist too.
Big Thief guitarist Buck Meek’s 16 favourite country songs
- ‘The Wolfman of Del Rio’ by Terry Allen
- ‘Anyhow, I Love You’ by Guy Clark
- ‘Trucker Speed’ by Fred Eaglesmith
- ‘I Know You’ by The Flatlanders
- ‘Wheels’ by The Flying Burrito Brothers
- ‘Sky-Bo’ by Merle Haggard
- ‘You Can’t Rollerskate In A Buffalo Herd’ by Roger Miller
- ‘The Maker’ by Willie Nelson
- ‘(Is Anybody Going to) San Antone’ by Doug Sahm
- ‘Dry Town (Demo)’ by Gillian Welch
- ‘The Hobo Song (Live)’ by Old and In the Way
- ‘You Are Not Needed Now’ by Townes van Zandt
- ‘It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels’ by Kitty Wells
- ‘California Zephyr’ by Hank Williams
- ‘Metal Firecracker (WXPN Live At The World Café)’ by Lucinda Williams
- ‘Take Me Home Jesus’ by Link Wray
