Eric Church (Has A) Record Year — New Video

Eric Church debuted his new video “Record Year” today on CMT’s Hot 20 Countdown and it’s up for viewing on Vevo, you’ll find a link below.
 
 The video and it’s song, filmed in an old abonded school house in East Nashville, deals with a breakup and the consequent flight of the left one into listening to an old three foot stack of warm sounding vinyl records. Cleverly written by Church and his longtime banjo player and guitarist Jeff Hyde. 
 
 I bet you thought before you left
 I’d just sit in silence by myself
 Turn this house into a jail
 Dyin’ slow in a livin’ hell
 But love’s got a funny way of keepin’ score
 And your leavin’ lit up my scoreboard
 I usually make it through side A sober
 All bets are off when I flip her over
 One bourbon, one scotch, one beer
 I’m havin’ a record year

The John Lee Hooker reference “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” — also known by a great version by George Thorogood — isn’t the only name-dropping in the little epic, (George) Jones, (Waylon) Jennings are as well mentioned in the song as Hank (Williams) and Stevie Wonder’s “Songs In The Key of Life.” Willie Nelson lends comfort with “Red Headed Stranger”, James Brown is mentioned and as a little great surprise the old quartet New Grass Revival, who started promoting progressive bluegrass in the early 80s. Even though it’s uncertain if the vinyl session will help the hurt one to get over it or just inflect some more, this time physical pain by speakers being on ten, damaging his ears.
 
 I’m either gonna get over you
 Or I’m gonna blow out my ears
 Yeah, you’re out there now
 Doin’ God knows how, and I’m stuck here
 Havin’ a record year
 
 Another “nice” reference, at least a great play on words, comes in the verse where he suggests that only a needle — not in his arm but on his vinyl — can save him:
 
 Your leavin’ left me goin’ crazy
 I’m countin’ on a needle to save me
 I drop it in the groove
 And we go ‘round and ‘round
 And down in a spiral
 
 Eric also debuts his new Signature Gibson Guitar, Hummingbird Dark in the video.
 To use the records to line up on an un-used weight lifting bench as a 3-D audio waveform reflecting the sonic intensity of the song is absolute clever (see picture on top of the blog) and Church’s manager John Peets and video maker Reid Long, who directed “Record Year” deserves some great praise. Maybe the trio, Church, Peats and Reid can double down on winning video of the year, as they did with the ACM video of the year for the title track of Church’s new album “Mr. Misunderstood.” 
 
 Summary: Great song, outstanding video — musically a tad to contemporary for my taste, but still a favorite of country music videos released this year.

Sources: EBMedia, ACM