Choctaw Bingo

I have been listening to a lot of James McMurtry lately. Yes that's James McMurtry of James McMurtry and the Heartless Bastards fame, and son of author Larry McMurtry. Well he has this song that I really like called Choctaw Bingo - well worth a listen.



As a frequent visitor to Texas and Oklahoma and a onetime resident of Texas, I think this song paints a fairly realistic picture of one aspect life in that part of the U.S.A. - that part in the middle away from the coasts. But before anyone complains, note I said one aspect, not all you folks in the middle are cooking meth and shooting guns, not to mention getting on good terms with your second cousins.

I also went to see Ray Wylie Hubbard last weekend and what did he end up playing - the very same Choctaw Bingo.

To top it all today, I ran across this article in Slate suggesting that Choctaw Bingo become the new anthem of the United States. OK it's tongue in cheek, its too long for a start, but look on the plus side it doesn't have that same extreme vocal range that The Star Spangled Banner does - hey even I could attempt it!

As the Slate article says the song is "new-national-anthem-level genius" and is "a song that more truly represents the America of today: post-crash, pre-apocalypse, meth- and money-addicted, heading down the highway to self-destruction." Worth a read.