Drive-By Truckers released a new song called the “The Perilous Night” that continues with the same politically charged agenda as their 2016 album, American Band. “‘The Perilous Night’ is a sort of nightmarish epilogue to the themes we addressed on American Band,” said Drive-By Truckers singer and songwriter Patterson Hood. “I began writing it on the day the Electoral College met in December 2016 and completed it in the wake of the horrific events in Charlottesville, VA last summer. We recorded it in Athens, GA during a break in our fall tour and mixed it on the day Tom Petty passed away. It may be the darkest song I’ve ever written, but it’s also a dance song. Turn it up!”
The alternative country rock band hit back on Election Day with this studio version release, as a prompt to get out and vote. It’s a harsh rocker with cynical lyrics voicing their disappointment with so many Americans who go out of their way to justify the unjustifiable. Hood sings “The Klan and the Nazis are taking up the fight / against their own salvation in the savior’s light / We’re moving into the perilous night, Amen / Flags of oppression are blocking out the light / dismantling The Greatest Generation’s fight / We’re moving into the perilous night, Amen.”
The Truckers started performing it on tour straightaway. NPR commended it as “a righteous work of protest and a profound act of self-examination; it sounds like the Stones and the Boss, but with a unique sense of mission.” The Truckers will dive into 2018 with a U.S. tour, kicking off on January 26. Listen to “The Perilous Night” below.
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