Line #57 Music/Old97s


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/old_97s.jpg]]
2
3	The Old 97's are an AlternativeCountry band from [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas]], Texas. Formed in the early '90s, they have twelve studio albums plus a holiday album:
4
5	* ''Hitchhike to Rhome'' (1994)
6	* ''Wreck Your Life'' (1995)
7	* ''Too Far to Care'' (1997)
8	* ''Fight Songs'' (1999)
9	* ''Satellite Rides'' (2001)
10	* ''Drag It Up'' (2004)
11	* ''Blame It on Gravity'' (2008)
12	* ''The Grand Theatre, Vol. 1'' (2010)
13	* ''The Grand Theatre, Vol. 2'' (2011)
14	* ''Most Messed Up'' (2014)
15	* ''Graveyard Whistling'' (2017)
16	* ''Love the Holidays'' (2018)
17	* ''Twelfth'' (2020)
18
19	Rather incredibly, their line-up has stayed consistent for twenty years:
20
21	* Rhett Miller (vocals, rhythm guitar)
22	* Ken Bethea (lead guitar)
23	* Murry Hammond (bass guitar, backing vocals, occasional lead vocals)
24	* Philip Peeples (drums)
25
26	The band also appears in ''Film/TheGuardiansOfTheGalaxyHolidaySpecial'' performing an original song, and a new version of one of their Christmas songs with Creator/KevinBacon. Miller subsequently reprised his role from the special in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3''.
27	----
28	'''Provides Examples of:'''
29
30	* AlbumTitleDrop: Quite frequently. ''Hitchhike to Rhome'' in "Stoned" ("Hitchhike to Rhome / Take a Greyhound to Fredericksburg"); ''Too Far to Care'' in "Streets of Where I'm From" ("I've been down too far to care"); ''Satellite Rides'' in ''Drag It Up'''s "In the Satellite Rides a Star"; ''Drag It Up'' in "Smokers" ("I'm a smoker, dragging up all my extra store"); ''Blame It on Gravity'' in "No Baby I" ("Blame it on gravity / Blame it on being a girl").
31	* AlmaMaterSong: "Friends Forever," though it's mostly about how much being a high-schooler sucks:
32	-->"The twelve years after five are years you're lucky to survive."
33	* AutoErotica: "Bel-Air." ("I'm drowning in the back seat of a '61 Bel-Air / I've got a mouthful of your hair, a handful of skin.")
34	* BalladOfX: "This Is the Ballad," which is the ballad of...a lot of things.
35	* BawdySong: A lot of 'em.
36	-->"Barrier Reef": "We went through the motions / With her on top and me on liquor."
37	* BigAppleSauce: "Broadway" and "Manhattan (I'm Done)," but neither make New York sound that great.
38	* BreakupSong: Again, a lot of 'em.
39	* BSide: "The Villain," the B-side to "Nineteen," ended up on the band's live album.
40	* CarSong: "If My Heart Was a Car."
41	* CelebritySong: "Ray Charles."
42	* ClusterFBomb: "Nashville," and by extension, ''Most Messed Up.''
43	-->Rhett Miller: "I went up to Nashville and got put up with a co-writer, this guy John [=McElroy=], just kind of this old Nashville writer. And I went in, and he had this line. He said: “I been watching you on Website/YouTube, and I think your audience would really appreciate it if you just walked out on stage and said ‘Fuck.’”
44	* CoverVersion: Murry Hammond sang a number of these in the early days: "Mama Tried," "My Sweet Blue-Eyed Darlin'," and "Let the Train Blow the Whistle." Miller did Jon Langford's "Over the Cliff" and "You Belong to My Heart" from, uh, WesternAnimation/TheThreeCaballeros. The band also covered The Rolling Stones, R.E.M., and others on 2010's ''Mimeograph'' EP.
45	* DrunkenSong: Oh my, yes.
46	* DyingTown: "Buick City Complex," which is about the titular, now-shuttered automobile factory in Flint, Michigan. This being a Rhett Miller song, he turns it into a come-on, and the song opens, "Do you wanna mess around?"
47	* EpicRocking: Mostly averted, as their songs are generally pretty short. "Longer Than You've Been Alive" is their longest studio track at 5:53.
48	* FriendshipSong: "Friends Forever," of course, but also "The One."
49	* GriefSong: "No Mother," about the band's roadie who died young.
50	* HypocriticalSinging: "No Simple Machine," arguably.
51	* {{Instrumentals}}: A few: "Ken's Polka Thing" from ''Hitchhike to Rhome'' and "Marquita" from ''The Grand Theatre, Vol. 2''.
52	* IntercourseWithYou: "Rollerskate Skinny" ("Do you wanna meet up at the Pickwood Bowl? / We could knock nine down and leave one in the hole").
53	* LetsDuet: "Four Leaf Clover," with Music/XUSBand's Exene Cervenka.
54	* LyricalDissonance: "King of All the World" sure sounds like a cheery, even ebullient, PowerPop song. It's not until the fifth or sixth time through it that you realize the narrator is threatening suicide at the end:
55	-->"If I wander out a picture window,
56	-->Write below my name,
57	-->'There goes the king of all the world'"
58	** Rhett Miller's "Our Love" from his solo album The Instigator has a cheery tempo and upbeat chorus about how "Our love goes on and on". It is about Richard Wagner and Franz Kafka, respectively, carrying out doomed affairs with women married to their respective friends.
59	* MoneySong: "The One."
60	* MurderBallad: "The Other Shoe."
61	* NewSoundAlbum: ''Fight Songs'' marked a transition to a poppier sound. The alternative country purists were not pleased, especially with the single, "Nineteen."
62	** [[OldShame The band itself isn't really fond of it either]].
63	* NonAppearingTitle: "Nashville."
64	* OdeToIntoxication: "Stoned," "Cryin' Drunk," "Let the Whiskey Take the Reins," "Let's Get Drunk and Get It On," "Wasted," "Intervention," and so on.
65	* OneWomanSong: "Victoria," "Doreen," "Ivy," and "Adelaide."
66	* PrayerIsALastResort: "Here's to the Halcyon," which opens, "Get me through this, Lord, and I'll do anything you say."
67	* RockStarSong: "Longer Than You've Been Alive."
68	* SettingOffSong: "The One," which compares getting a major-label deal with robbing a bank. Subverted in that it wasn't officially released for a decade after said major-label deal.
69	* SignsOfDisrepair: The Texas Department Of Transportation once gave out bumper stickers with the slogan "Don't Wreck Your Life" - Philip Peeples applied the sticker to the bumper of the band's tour van, but for the sake of dark humor he removed the first word, thus inspiring the album title ''Wreck Your Life''.
70	* SingerNamedrop: Kind of, in "No Baby I": "Sing it like a train-disaster song." (The band is named after the most famous train-disaster song, "The Wreck of the Old 97.")
71	** In "Barrier Reef", Rhett Miller drops his full name, introducing himself to a prospective one night stand with "My name's Stewart Ransom Miller, I'm a serial lady killer".
72	* StepUpToTheMicrophone: Murry Hammond sings a song or two on every album. Ken Bethea had one on ''Drag It Up'' with "Coahuila."
73	* TakeThat: Hammond's "Crash on the Barrelhead" is a shot at Ryan Adams, who was at that time a rather notoriously mean-spirited drunk.
74	-->"You're gonna die the way you lived
75	-->And the way you drink, you're like a river
76	-->Bound for falls, not much fun
77	-->You're gonna crash on the barrelhead, son."
78	** Not as much as a shot at Adams as it is more of a tough-love warning that he'd probably die early if he continued the lifestyle.
79	* TeenageDeathSong: "The Fool," depending on how old its protagonists are.
80	* ThisIsASong: "This Is the Ballad."
81	* TitleOnlyChorus: "Broadway" and "How Lovely All It Was."
82	* TrainSong: Well, they are named after one. Murry Hammond in particular is wild about trains, and many of their songs are explicitly about riding the rails: "Old Familiar Steam," "Let the Train Blow the Whistle," "W. TX Teardrops," "Please Hold on While the Train Is Moving," "I'm a Trainwreck," and many other references in lyrics.

Context Music / Old97s