Music / Hank Williams as Luke the Drifter

Original 1955 version

2001 Beyond the Sunset CD reissue

Hank Williams as Luke The Drifter is a 1955 MGM Records compilation album that posthumously collected most of the recordings that Hank Williams made under his Luke The Drifter alter ego.

Recitations backed by music had always been an important part of the Country Music tradition, and toward the end of The '40s several of them had been big hits for other artists. Williams always included some spoken pieces in his live shows, and he'd built up a big repertoire of them, including both originals and material by others (including some poems dating back to the 19th century), with varying themes of religion and moralism (the major themes), sentimentality, reflection, humor and patriotism. Williams, feeling that they marked a major step up for him as an artist, was eager to record them, but his label MGM and his producer Fred Rose were skeptical of their commercial prospects, fearing that they might alienate Hank's audience; as one biographer put it, no bar patrons putting coins in a jukebox would've wanted "to punch up a Hank Williams record and get a sermon." But seeing how committed Williams was to the idea, Rose worked out a compromise with him: he could record and release the songs, but would have to do it under a Stage Name. Williams obliged and chose the evocative "Luke The Drifter", mixing elements of religion and hard realism. He used his usual country backing, but also added a churchy, ethereal electric organ for atmosphere. But neither Williams nor MGM even tried to pretend that Luke wasn't really Hank Williams. Williams proudly performed the Luke songs in live shows and on the radio, introducing Luke as a "close relative", "good friend" or even "my half-brother".

Released alongside Hank's regular music, the Luke The Drifter singles didn't sell well enough to make the charts, but were a definite Cult Classic that sold in decent numbers and enhanced Williams' mystique among his hardcore fans. After Williams' death (which underlined the often dark tone of the material), MGM began compiling the singles in various forms, including extended play singles and mini-albums, before finally putting togther this full-length album. A 2001 CD reissue gave it a new title (Beyond The Sunset: Hank Williams as Luke The Drifter), a new cover, and added the two Luke songs that hadn't been included in the 1955 release ("No, No, Joe", "Ramblin' Man") as bonus tracks.

The Luke material still remains one of the bedrocks of Williams' reputation, showcasing the serious side of his work and personality, and is sometimes also viewed as the point when Country Music really began to achieve some artistic maturity. Bob Dylan has cited it as one of his early inspirations; Dylan did a faithful (though somewhat tongue-in-cheek) cover of "Be Careful of Stones That You Throw" during the sessions for The Basement Tapes in 1967, and several songs on John Wesley Harding bear an obvious Luke The Drifter influence. Many of the other songs have gotten the Cover Version treatment over the years.

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Tracklist:

Side One

1. "Pictures from Life's Other Side" (2:49)
2. "Men with Broken Hearts" (3:08)
3. "Help Me Understand" (2:54)
4. "Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals" (2:58)
5. "Please Make Up Your Mind" (2:48)
6. "I've Been Down That Road Before" (2:54)

Side Two

1. "Be Careful of Stones That You Throw" (2:57)
2. "I Dreamed About Mama Last Night" (2:59)
3. "The Funeral" (3:03)
4. "Beyond The Sunset" (2:58)
5. "Just Waitin' " (2:38)
6. "Everything's Okay" (2:48)

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Bonus Tracks (2001 Beyond the Sunset Reissue):

1. "No, No, Joe" (2:26)
2. "Ramblin' Man" (3:01)

Tropes from Life's Other Side:

• Always Someone Better: "I've Been Down That Road Before"
  Now when you get to thinking you're really smart
  There's somebody smarter than you
  And no matter how much you boast and brag
  You can still learn a thing or two
• An Aesop:
  • The last lines of "Men with Broken Hearts".
    So help your brother along the road
    No matter where he starts
    For the God that made you made them, too
    These men with broken hearts
  • "Be Careful of Stones That You Throw" is unusual in that the Aesop is in the song's chorus, rather than at the end.
    A tongue can accuse and carry bad news
    The seeds of distrust it will sow
    But unless you've made no mistakes in your life
    Be careful of stones that you throw
• Awful Wedded Life: Even accounting that we might be hearing from an Unreliable Narrator in the husband, the couple in "Please Make Up Your Mind" sounds like they have an utterly miserable marriage.
• Badass Boast: On behalf of America in "No, No, Joe" (with a side of America Won World War II).
  Don't you go throwin' your weight around
  No, no Joe
  'Cause the Kaiser tried it and Hitler tried it
  Mussolini tried it too
  Now they're all sittin' around a fire and did you know something?
  They're saving a place for you
• Cover Version: "Pictures from Life's Other Side" and "The Funeral" are both pieces dating back to the 19th century. "Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals" is a 1926 pop song. "Beyond The Sunset" merged the chorus of a 1936 hymn with verses taken from a 1945 poem by sportscaster Albert "Rosey" Rowswell called "Should You Go First". "Be Careful of Stones That You Throw" was written by steel guitarist Bonnie Dodd and was first recorded in 1949 by Little Jimmy Dickens. "I Dreamed About Mama Last Night" and "No, No, Joe" were written by Hank's producer Fred Rose.
• Darker and Edgier: This is far more reflective and depressing than Hank's usual material (which itself was already much more personal than most Country Music of its era was to begin with).
• Death Is Dramatic: Mama in "I Dreamed About Mama Last Night" died surrounded by her family.
• Death of a Child: "The Funeral" takes place at the funeral of a young boy, with the preacher reassuring his parents.
• Disappeared Dad: "Help Me Understand" is centered around a little girl who's despondent after her father abandons her and her mother.
• Dolled-Up Installment: "Ramblin' Man" was originally released as a Luke single in 1951, but was later reissued as the B-Side to "Take These Chains From My Heart" in 1953, and presumably got left off the 1955 album because it was already well-known from that.
• Driven to Suicide: The "outcast woman" who jumps into a river in "Pictures from Life's Other Side".
• Epic Rocking: Country Music in The '50s obviously wasn't known for long songs to begin with, but several of the songs here push three minutes, very long for that era, and "Men with Broken Hearts" was the longest track Williams released while he was alive.
• Farmer's Daughter: "Just Waitin' "
  Farmer's daughter's waitin' for the salesman
  To take her into town
• Gambling Ruins Lives: "Pictures from Life's Other Side" mentions a gambler so broke he stakes his dead mother's wedding ring ("his last earthly treasure") in a card game.
• Generation Xerox: Hank Williams Jr. did a nod to this part of his father's legacy by recording three albums of spoken word pieces as Luke The Drifter, Jr. between 1968 and 1970.
• Grow Old with Me: "Beyond the Sunset" inverts this, with the narrator pondering how he'll react if his wife dies before him.
• Happily Married: The couple in "Beyond the Sunset".
• Have a Gay Old Time: "I Dreamed About Mama Last Night"
  We little thought about it then, for we were young and gay
• Henpecked Husband: The narrator of "Please Make Up Your Mind" portrays himself as this.
  Why, when I married you, you were such a meek little thing
  But honey, among tigers, you'd be queen
  If a poor little rabbit had you on his side
  Every hound in the country would crawl off and hide
• Heroic Sacrifice: In "Be Careful of Stones That You Throw", the "bad girl who lives down the street" gets killed when she jumps in front of a car to to save her neighbor's daughter.
• Oddball in the Series: "Ramblin' Man" is the only actual song here. Everything else mixes singing and recitation (with some straight recitations as well).
• Protest Song: "No, No, Joe" gently chides Josef Stalin over his posturing at the start of The Cold War.
• Russian Bear: Mentioned in "No, No, Joe"
  And you might be itchin' for a fight
  Quit braggin' about how your bear can bite
• The Stoic: Uncle Bill in "Everything's Okay" goes through a looong list of everything that's wrong with him and his family, but he repeatedly concludes that "We're still a-livin', so everything's okay."
• Two Decades Behind: The tone of the material, often bouncing between sentimentalism and sober moralism, feels much more like something from before The Great Depression than from The '50s. Williams almost certainly intended the Luke songs to sound anachronistic, which interestingly means that he was doing the same types of throwbacks to the music of his youth that Hank Williams Jr. would later do when he covered his dad's material.
• Wham Line: In "Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals", after a judge laments in his courtroom about how the young woman on trial fell into a life of prostitution.
  Now gentlemen that's my story, my testimony stands
  This girl is my own daughter and the case is in your hands
• Wanderlust Song: "Ramblin' Man"
  I love to see the towns a-passin' by
  And to ride these rails 'neath God's blue sky
  Let me travel this land from the mountains to the sea
  'Cause that's the life I believe He meant for me