Fast Tracks: Hillbilly Harmonies on Robbie Fulks’ “When You Get to the Bottom”


Track 6

“When You Get to the Bottom”

From Robbie Fulks’ Gone Away Backward

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Gone Away Backward

Liner notes: “Live it up while you can/But when you get to the bottom/Don’t reach for my hand,” Robbie Fulks wails, as keening hillbilly harmonies and acoustic guitars underscore his high-lonesome misery.

?Behind the music: The versatile Chicagoan, who once “saluted” Nashville with the song “Fuck This Town,” never stays in one rootsy groove for long; his last album was a Michael Jackson tribute.

Check out if you like: Country tunesmiths with a gift for blending sentiment and dark humor, like Roger Miller and Tom T. Hall.

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