100 Best Americana and Country Songs of the Decade: Part 6 (#50-41)

by Julian Spivey

​Note: portions of this article have previously been published on this site

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50. "My Favorite Picture of You" by Guy Clark (2013)

"It's a thousand words/In the blink of an eye/The camera loves you and so do I/Click"

Songwriting legend Guy Clark just had to show all them young guns one last time how it’s done before leaving this world behind. “My Favorite Picture of You” is the title track from Clark’s final album in 2013, before his death at 74 in 2016, and it’s one of the most stunning and beautiful pieces of work he’d ever written in such a glorious career. The beauty of the song is in its reality as you know this had to have been a tribute to his wife Susanna, who passed away the year before this album/song were released, and it’s hard not to shed a tear listening to the beauty of Clark recalling these moments captured in snapshots. 

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49. "I Gotta Go" by Robert Earl Keen (2011)

"Wastin' time standin' here/I gotta go"

Robert Earl Keen simply isn’t putting out enough original music these days. He hasn’t had an album of complete originals since 2011’s Ready for Confetti, which included the excellent “I Gotta Go,” which I’d put right up there with any of the Texas legend’s greatest hits. This funky little ditty tells the story of an orphan who grows up to be quite the gamble, but gets into trouble with the wrong crowd and, well, ends up dead. It’s the kind of quick little story song about a man of less than stellar morals that Keen revels in. 

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48. "All Around You" by Sturgill Simpson (2016)

"Just know in your heart/That we're always together/And long after I'm gone/I'll still be around"

​Sturgill Simpson’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth is a fairly bombastic album, especially considering what he’s recorded before, but the quietest song on the album “All Around You” is one of its best. The album is essentially Simpson’s letter to his newborn son about life and the soulful “All Around You” is about a father’s love – whether it’s a physical fatherly presence or a heavenly one. It’s simply beautiful. 

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47. "Birmingham" by Shovels & Rope (2013)

"Making something out of nothing with a scratcher and our hope/With two old guitars like a shovel and a rope"

​There are some performances you see that absolutely floor you and you’ll never forget, and I’ll never forget the first time I saw Shovels & Rope. It was an early 2013 episode of “Late Show with David Letterman” and this husband-and-wife duo just dropped my jaw with their performance of “Birmingham,” with their raucous performing style and incredibly twangy harmonizing – both Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent singing full-throatily. “Birmingham” is a semi-autobiographical song about the duo’s story from childhood all the way through meeting and creating the group together, which is such a unique idea for a song 

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46. "Somewhere with You" by Kenny Chesney (2010)

"I can go out every night of the week/Can go home with anybody I meet/But it's just a temporary high/'Cause when I close my eyes/I'm somewhere with you"

Kenny Chesney has a knack for doing this sort of suave songs about a short-lived love that was never meant to be much more than short-lived, but something you’ll seemingly never be able to get out of your head. “Somewhere with You,” off Chesney’s 2010 album Hemingway’s Whiskey, is about a young love that burns fast and leaves a gaping hole that’s hard to recover from. The song was written by Shane McAnally and J.T. Harding and Chesney told CMT: “It’s so different but I still felt that it was really me. I felt melodically it was completely different and sexy.” Chesney is right and it just goes to show that sometimes “different” isn’t a bad thing in country music. 

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45. "Old Hickory" by Old Crow Medicine Show (2018)

“Old hickory/shading the porch of a house that’s been torn down/there ain’t nothin’ that’s left but the memory/and that long tall, scraggily, bitternut old hickory”

​Every Old Crow Medicine Show album has at least one track that when you first hear it you know is immediately going to become one of the band’s greatest hits and for their latest album Volunteer that song is “Old Hickory.” “Old Hickory” tells the tale of a flatwoods boy named Virgil Lee, who was the greatest musician for miles around, but sees his flame burn out before he hits it big. “Old Hickory” contains one of my absolute favorite choruses of the year with: “Old hickory/shading the porch of a house that’s been torn down/there ain’t nothin’ that’s left but the memory/and that long tall, scraggily, bitternut old hickory.” “Old Hickory” proves that Ketch Secor and Critter Fuqua can write a story song with the best of them. 

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44. "Immortal Americans" by Austin Lucas (2018)

"We sang the songs of our fathers/Sha-la-la, ooh-la-la-la/And all the prayers of our mothers/Dutiful daughters, dutiful sons/Sha-la-la, goes the rattle and hum/From the hearth of a Midwestern home/Sha-la-la that's the sound of immortal Americans"

​The first verse of “Immortal Americans” stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it with its terrific imagery that is Springsteen-esque (and there’s no higher compliment in my opinion) of sitting on rooftops and listening to nearby stock car races and the humming of the engines. Lucas told American Songwriter of the song: “This song is dedicated to the outsiders and freaks who grew up in small towns and the rural countrysides of America, the folks who discovered themselves and suffered for it when their identities fell outside of the mainstream.” I feel like he’s singing straight to me. 

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43. "Every Time I Hear That Song" by Brandi Carlile (2018)

"By the way, I forgive you/After all, maybe I should thank you/For giving me what I've found/'Cause without you around/I've been doing just fine/Except for any time I hear that song"

​Brandi Carlile’s By The Way, I Forgive You was without a doubt one of the finest Americana albums of 2018. The song that gives the album its title, “Every Time I Hear That Song” is one of the most beautiful melodies I heard all year. The track recounts a failed relationship and how the narrator has gotten over it and moved on with her life but is reminded of it every time she hearts a certain song. Carlile, who co-wrote the song with Phil and Tim Hanseroth, has gorgeous vocals to go along with the mellow melody.

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42. "Another Like You" by Hayes Carll & Cary Ann Hearst (2011)

"You're like a four-leaf clover/I just had to come on over/I have never seen a woman like you"

​“Another Like You” by Hayes Carll and Cary Ann Hearst (of Shovels & Rope) from Carll’s 2011 release KMAG YOYO (& other American Stories) is my absolute favorite duet of the decade and it’s a laugh-riot in the vein of great comedy duets like “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly” by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty or “In Spite of Ourselves” by John Prine and Iris DeMent. Carll and Hearst play off each other perfectly as they throw zingers like, “you’re probably a Democrat” and “I bet you slept with half the South” at one another. It’s a helluva lot of fun. 

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41. "False Accuser's Lament" by Jason Boland & the Stragglers (2011)

"Father, please forgive me for I've falsely testified/They had me swear upon a Bible and I lied"

​Jason Boland & the Stragglers’ “False Accuser’s Lament,” off the band’s 2011 release Rancho Alto, is the modern day “Long Black Veil.” It tells the story of a down-on-his luck farmer who lies before a jury about a murder and fingers the wrong man in the crime in order to receive payment and keep his farm going. The song tells of the night terrors the farmer has as he’s being haunted by the guilt of what he’s done. I think Lefty Frizzell would’ve been proud of Boland for this one. 

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