What Is It That Makes “The Bird Hunters” So Special?

I’m convinced I tweet about the brilliance of Turnpike Troubadours’ “The Bird Hunters” at least once a month. From a base analysis, the reason is simple- Evan Felker’s songwriting is the best of this generation, and the production (emphasized) by Kyle Nix’s fiddle lead is extraordinary. But lately I’ve wanted to dig deeper. What exactly makes “The Bird Hunters” the instant-classic it has become. Why does it get to the heart of everything that makes country music tick?

I’ve compiled three reasons why “The Bird Hunters” holds such a special place in the minds of country music fans including narrative, sense of place, and the stylistic and rhetorical devices Evan Felker employs throughout the song. Let’s start with the narrative.

Evan Felker has listed James McMurtry as the greatest narrative songwriter around today. I’m not about to argue with Felker, but I’d have no problems putting Evan right up there with McMurtry. In an interview with the crucial website Songwriters on Process and its founder Ben Opipari, Felker says the most challenging part of narrative songwriting is character development. He says, “There’s so little time to develop character…it’s hard to make characters believable in such a short space.”

And yet we find ourselves invested in the couple characters we meet in “The Bird Hunters.” There’s the unnamed narrator (most likely a reoccuring character from other Felker stories). We’ve got Danny, the narrator’s best buddy. And of course Jim, the hunting dog who has a “dozen Decembers behind him.”

Sure, “The Bird Hunters” contains the standard verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus structure. And yet, we as listeners aren’t just listening to a standard song. It’s a story unfolding in just over five minutes, filled with rich detail and the characters living out an afternoon in the duck blind right in front of us.

One of the fascinating things about the narrative Felker writes of in “The Bird Hunters” is how the story develops so quickly. We learn why the narrator returned to Cherokee County and how Danny is helping the narrator deal with the loss of a relationship. We find out about Jim and how it came to be that Danny is now hunting with the dog that once belonged to the narrator.

The conclusion of the narrative is highly important as the narrator wraps up the story with Dan’s compliment on his shooting by writing, “Hell of a shot, looks like you’ve still got it/And that’s what we came here to do.” A simple, understated way of Dan knowing the importance of the blind and its role in helping the narrator move on and find his sense of belonging.

Complimenting Felker’s written narrative is the sense of place found in “The Bird Hunters.” The story takes place in one particular duck blind, with the narrator coming out and telling us, “It’s good to be back in this place.” We get a detailed description of the land surrounding the narrator as Felker sings “the country was cold with the sun westward sinking” and in the last verse, “it’s light enough still at the foot of the hill.” Yet we’re also told about Tulsa and how it didn’t work out for the narrator. The narrator fell in love at a rodeo dance which made him think “it would play out like some story.”

In the paragraph I just wrote there’s a ton of detail about place and setting. Studying country music makes one always remember how important place is to a song and why country is so inherently connected to the ground from which it came. We are reinforced by that point as Dan tells the narrator, “How good does it feel? You belong in these hills.” Dan knows the narrator’s purpose and where he feels most at home.

Dan is a sympathetic figure in the song. He isn’t judging the narrator; in fact, he’s there for the narrator when he needs Dan the most. Dan makes the point that, “If you’d have married that girl, you’d have married her family/You dodged a bullet my friend.” Rather than mocking the narrator for returning home, Dan welcomes him with open arms…back to the place in which the narrator belongs.

And finally, let’s take a look at something that differs a tad from the narrative and sense of place. Let’s examine Evan Felker’s skillful use of rhetorical and stylistic devices that are employed in “The Bird Hunters.”

One thing that’s always stood out to me when listening to “The Bird Hunters” is Felker’s use of alliteration. During the song, we hear:

“Shotguns-a-singin’”
“Sun westward sinking”
“Belgian-made Browning”
“Dozen Decembers”
“Flutter of feathers”
“Shotgun to shoulder”

The use of alliteration from Felker ensures that altough we’re listeneing to an entire narrative play out in front of us, we still find ourselves singing along. Without the ability to sing along, country music would far too often fall into poetry. Bad? Of course not. But what distinguishes Kristofferson, Guy Clark, Townes, and, yes, Felker, from all the others is the ability to both tell a story and get the audience singing along to every word.

We also see Felker use a bit of repetition in the bridge as he sings, “I thought of the Fourth of July/She’ll be home on the Fourth of July/Bet we’d dance on the Fourth of July.” The Fourth of July holiday finds itself mentioned in a couple other Turnpike Troubadours’ songs including “Kansas City Southern” and “Blue Star,” but the holiday takes center stage as its repeated three times; the narrator making the point that although he’s in the process of getting over his failed relationship, she very well could show up and complicate things again. It’s never an easy resolution with a Felker song!

Music is fun. But, look, I haven’t written a thesis since college, and even though this was massively shorter than one of my twenty page history thesis would be, I enjoyed it.

“The Bird Hunters” is a phenomenal song, and it deserves the same treatment we give a Faulkner or Hemingway composition. Thanks to its narrative, sense of place, and use of rhetorical and sylistic devices, “The Bird Hunters” has entered the annals of country music history.

Due to their hiatus, Turnpike Troubadours entered a sort of mythological space, with some not truly understanding why they continually sit atop a pedestal. The answer is simple. Just listen to the music.