From “Guitar Man” to “The Guitar Slinger”: Kip Moore’s Odyssey
It’s not like Kip Moore wrote and released “Guitar Man” early in his career. It wasn’t a long-lost deep cut. It wasn’t coming from a wide-eyed newcomer to Nashville. No, “Guitar Man,” appeared as the last song on Slowheart, Kip’s third record and the album that solidified his dedicated fan base for the long haul. It’s an optimistic, breezy look at the life Kip chose to live by playing music for strangers night after night. Usually, something that hopeful, something that…naive would be long out of the system of an artist who spent over a decade grinding in Nashville before finally breaking out. And yet it appeared on the record and became a staple as a show-closer for a year or two.
Jump forward a few years- through a pandemic, through social unrest, through some of the most turbulent times generations of Americans have lived through, and here we have Kip writing and releasing “The Guitar Slinger” off his latest album Damn Love. “The Guitar Slinger” is quite literally the opposite of “Guitar Man.” While the narrator in “Guitar Man” is eager to get on down the road to play another show, the narrator in “The Guitar Slinger” is worn-down and dreads the thought of hopping back on the tour bus. It’s quite the stark contrast. And also a contrast I feel deserves a deeper dive. It provides an analysis of not just Kip and the music industry, but what many of us have gone through over the past few years.
“Guitar Man,” as I mentioned, was released as the final song off of Kip Moore’s 2017 album Slowheart. It’s a breezy record as whole, with Kip singing of bucking the bulls who stood in his way, taking a humorous look at where life has taken him in “I’ve Been Around,” and releasing the last top ten single he’s had up to this point with “Last Shot” reaching number six on Billboard’s Country Airplay. “Guitar Man,” even without the benefit of hindsight, really felt like the closing of a chapter. The last record that was truly promoted by his label. The last record that included a song that was shoehorned on to an album for the sake of trying to get radio play (“Last Shot”). And still a record you could tell Kip felt immensely proud of.
When asked by CMT why fans should pay attention to “Guitar Man” in particular, Kip responded by saying, “I think that’s the most honest, autobiographical song. It displays all the vulnerabilities of what you’re feeling in the midst of chasing after a dream.” He continued by saying, “You have all those insecurities of feeling like a loser. But you still continue to dream and you fight. It kind of exposes all those elements.” The song itself came from Kip seeing a solitary man playing in a bar. He was brought back to going through those days himself.
In the chorus, Kip describes himself as an “empty, faceless, spotlight mic stand” with “the fruits of my labor when the crowd sings along.” But he’s still the “pickin’ and grinnin’ guitar man” who plays love songs with a “smile” when it’s requested.
We even get a glimpse of the meager life the narrator is living when, near the beginning of the song, he describes a good night as one where he awakes to “crumbled up ones, a few tens in between.” And yet he still travels on down the road to meet familiar barkeeps in the venue he’s playing.
Near the end of the story, we get Kip telling us about how he had someone he loved that asked him to choose her or the music. Now, “she’s back in Georgia, and I’m here with you.”
It’s such an optimistic look at life on the road for a “one-man band” who will be “best friends” at the end of the night but “strangers” until they play that city again.
And with that, the guitar man closed an important chapter in his life and musical journey.
When COVID-19 first came to the United States, we all thought it would be a temporary inconvenience. Two weeks of shutdown. Stay home, and avoid contact with groups of people. Be back to work and normal life in no time. But two weeks turned into a month. A month turned into a year, and then two years. Vaccines were made and adminsitered by heroes on the front line. We lost loved ones. We lost artists, actors, and folks that we thought felt like family. We wondered when all of this would be behind us. We drank, and we bunkered in. We went on walks, and we waited in line at the grocery store. And a lot of us turned to music.
Kip Moore released Wild World at the end of May 2020. Right when we all thought we were flattening the curve for the first time. It was a timely album, even if it wasn’t intended to be. Kip sang of the underdog. He sang of old lovers. He sang of priorities. It’s still an album I have a hard time revisiting as a piece of art, if only because it reminds me of such a difficult time in all of our lives. Sure, I’ll go revisit certain songs like “Red White Blue Jean American Dream” and “South.” And occasionally the excellent “Payin’ Hard.” But it’s difficult to sit with that entire record, if only because it was released at a certain time that we all found incredibly heavy.
But Kip was singing of the times, even if he hadn’t set out to do that with Wild World. As the mother told the narrator in the title track, “Oh, baby, it’s a wild world.”
Fast forward to spring 2023. Three years later though it feels like a lifetime. A pandemic. The greatest fight for equality the country has witnessed since the 1960s and the marches of Dr. King. The inauguration of President Biden in 2021 that saw insurrection and violence in a manner in which only historians can truly describe. Norms thrown aside. Civility, decency, and respect rendered obsolete. And, again, many of us have turned to music.
Kip Moore released his fifth studio album-and last with MCA Nashville-at the end of April 2023. It’s a darker project in scope than any that Kip previously released. It’s moody like Wild Ones, and by “dark,” I mean the beats and subject matter. Even in a quote, unquote *happier* song like “Sometimes She Stays,” Kip sings of finding a woman who is willing to stay “sometimes.” Or take, for instance, “Mr. Simple.” In “Mr. Simple,” the narrator lists things he isn’t in to but is willing to do for his loved one. Sacrifice. Compromise. Things not often discussed in today’s more ego-centric musical landscape. After all, “there’s a thin line between what the world tells you and what’s really true.”
Or, take “Another Night in Knoxville,” a pre-cursor to “The Guitar Singer.” The pace of the song is mid-tempo with those classic Kip-themed guitar licks and bass lines. But the lyrics find the narrator playing at a bar with a familiar face who walks in time and time again. We don’t know if the narrator knows the woman who appears in the bar, but we do know that he’s willing to play whatever song the woman wants just to have her stay a little bit longer or have another beer.
But where we see the comparison to “Guitar Man” come in is with “The Guitar Slinger.” It’s a dark and emotional look at the life Kip has chosen. The production and sound meets the lyrics to create a song that stops you in your tracks. Starting with somber piano and a couple of bass lines, Kip talks of “Another dawn creeping in” while “he’s coming down from last night’s buzz.” A couple of Springsteen Nebraska-esque howls follow. “Last week runs into today,” Kip sings, and “the years just keep rolling by.”
No longer the “pickin’ and grinnin’ guitar man,” Kip now sings, “I know I’m alive, but I’m walking dead.” It’s the most nihilistic song Kip has ever written and released. He’s always turned to Springsteen, Seger, and Mellencamp for influence, but he dials it up to ten with “The Guitar Slinger.” It’s reminiscent of Seger’s “Turn the Page,” with both songs taking each day as it comes without any protest and a blank stare. Accepting their fate on stage before turning the book to the next show in the next city. Knowing that they’ve committed to their music, and there’s nothing, at this point, either of them can do to escape it.
When I saw Kip the last time he rolled through Pittsburgh in April 2022, he told us, “This year will be our last record on Universal. They said, “We love your ticket sales. But you gotta bring it back to the center.” I said, “Well, I’m taking it further away.” Kip backed up his words with his latest record and put out a marker with “The Guitar Slinger.” We sometimes forget what these artists go through by putting their hearts on display night after night. The very best suffer through it at times to bring the best show possible. Even when they’re not feeling it. Even when they’re exhausted and worn down and feel the pain in their bones.
Kip’s journey from “Guitar Man” to “The Guitar Slinger” isn’t necessarily a cautionary tale. Rather, it’s a matter-of-fact look at the journey the best artists take while they’re out there on the road recording and touring the music that makes us feel better. Through a pandemic. Through social unrest. These artists, as Johnny Paycheck once sang in “Old Violin,” “give their all to music, and soon, we’ll give our life.”
Kip’s own expedition has been rocky at times, exciting for the fans, and tough on him. We, as the fans, can only give so much back, and, yet, Kip gives it back to us and then some. Some nights, Kip may be a guitar slinger with “nothing left but a shell of me.” Other nights, he may be a guitar man with everything in a song. The artist ends up, as they always does, somewhere in between.
