Coattails (1978)

Genre: Country waltz

I have big ears, both literally and figuratively. The former I blame on genetics. The latter I’ve intentionally cultivated over the years by listening to as wide a range of music as I can—with a few notable exceptions. One of them was country music.

I confess I was a snob. It came out of a tradition I couldn’t relate to—too rural, too uncultured, too white, too conservative, too Christian, too much male ego. The sensibility and twang turned me off.

When I wrote “Coattails” in 1978, I was a novice songwriter. I was just looking for an easy style to parody and country music seemed the easiest. A few chords, an identifiable “hook”—and since I was in the mind to write absurdist lyrics (see “You Think”)—a few improbably punny verses and I’d have a song.

I was accustomed to playing in 3/4 time on the accordion, so why not a waltz?

For the chorus, I created a “hook” that scrambled three separate expressions. The first (“to ride on someone’s coattails”) is a phrase so old-fashioned it hardly makes sense now (who even wears a coattail anymore?). The second,“cut me some slack,” is one I remember hearing for the first time only in the late 1960s. The third is a slight “twistification.” After all, to give someone “the shirt off one’s back” isn’t quite the same as stealing it.

Back in the 1970s, 2-track cassette recorders for home use were rare, but I found a TEAC model that would allow me to overdub a guitar part or harmony vocals or (in the case of “Coattails”) my accordion. I submitted the song to the KBCO Boulder Music Weekend and received a reception commensurate with the effort I put into it. I didn’t take it very seriously and the audience didn’t either.

My willful ignorance of country music changed 180 degrees in 2019 with Ken Burns’s 8-part miniseries on PBS. I started watching episode one, expecting that I might not make it through the first show, only to find myself sucked into the history, the stories, the characters and the legacy. It was fascinating to me and I couldn’t wait for each new episode.      

I discovered a new appreciation for Johnny Cash as a cross-pollinator of musics (he had young artists like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell on his weekly show). I was wowed by the stories of the Carter family, Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Charley Pride; Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Brenda Lee, Dolly Parton, Wanda Jackson (who I had seen at eTown a few years earlier)—and that’s just a partial list of the interesting biographies on the show.

Remarkably, I found a couple of accordionists in the bunch (!): Helen Carter herself and Pee Wee King (the stage name of Julius Frank Anthony Kuczynski), co-author of “The Tennessee Waltz.”

I even found things to like about Merle Haggard (in spite of “Okie from Muskogee.”) That’s how persuasive the documentary was!

I highly recommend the full 16 hours of “Country Music” to anyone who hasn’t seen it.     

When I came to re-do “Coattails” for my pandemic Logic Pro recording project, I was eager to show a little more respect for the genre. The lyrics are still corny, but I was happy to discover that Band-in-a-Box had a terrific-sounding pedal steel guitar, the inimitable sound that immediately identifies and places it within that cultural context.

I offer it this time around with a nod to a rich heritage I now appreciate much more than I did when I first wrote the song.