Ray's Automatic Weapon: An Essay About A Song By DBT

Another high quality sound from one of my favorite bands.

EXPLICITAVE/ANALYTICAL ESSAY: Drive-By-Truckers/Ray’s Automatic Weapon
By Ronald Borst

Lyrics: 

Ray I got to tell you

You got to take that gun back

Cuz these things that I been shooting at are getting all too real

Don’t want to hurt nobody, but I keep on aiming closer

Don’t think that I can keep it feeling like I feel

Ray I know I told you

That I’d keep it for you

I know I said I trusted me with it more than you

But something happened last night that made me reconsider

I need you to drive out here and relieve me of it too

I figured after forty years, I wouldn’t still be having nightmares

You’d think that now that we’re older, that war would finally be over

Ray, I’m in my sixties and the nights ain’t getting shorter

Only my patience and checkbook and fuse

Ray I got to tell you

You got to come take that gun back

Cuz these things that I’ve been shooting at are getting all too real

Lyrics, Patterson Hood/Music Cooley, Hood, Neff, Tucker, Morgan and Gonzalez

©Soul Dump Music (BMI)

It is the Drive-By Truckers song “Ray’s Automatic Weapon”, from the latest record “Gogo Boots”(2011).

In my opinion, to get a qualitive view of this writing(the song), one must both explicate and analyze the words of this song. There is no official video, which is good as I think they can be a distraction, especially if creative control is passed to a producer or director.

Reading the lyrics without the song playing gives the same effect as with, a longing to rid one’s self of a nightmare, in this case the memories of war. The deepness of that quest is front and center at the beginning of the lyric: “Ray I gotta tell ya…ya gotta come take this gun back...Cuz these things I been shooting at are getting all too real...”. Immediately the reader is aware of a pain or tragedy. As the first stanza continues, the words evoke a sense of wanting to do good while haunted. “Don’t want to hurt nobody, but I keep on aiming closer…” The line speaks intensely of the pains of wars. The stanza ends “Don’t think that I can keep it, feeling like I feel.” A five line verse, with 3 and 5 rhyming.

If we examined lyric poetry, this is it.^2  (A lyric written to be sung) One could also argue that it is dramatic poetry, and that too could be true. The tone of the verse tells us about the nightmare of Vietnam and the residual effects, especially the entire line 3. Even though the reader is not yet aware of the causes(Vietnam), this line leaves no doubt as to what is happening in this fella’s life. The line explains the reality and the seriousness to the reader as “real”. In spite of this, some will not realize this fact, even with the nightly news reporting daily of gun violence in America and of American men and women at wars in foreign lands. There is no metaphor or simile, no personification or apostrophe, and no hyperbole or litote. In my opinion the verse’s words are much an observation of events, truths…

The only backround information on this that I have is a story about writing the song, told by frontman Patterson Hood. The two characters are real, one living on the east coast and one on the west. They obviously both suffer some form of PTSD. And one is getting too far out of hand.

As the reader progresses into the second stanza, the conversation about the gun continues: “Ray I know I told you…That I’d keep it for you…” – Notice the same word as rhyme, sometimes typical in song. This line tells the reader of the plurality of the core issue, and that is the effects of war affect both characters, and the reality is that it cripples many veterans. So far the lyric seems to follow a dactylic rhythm.

The song verse goes on to state the battle: “I know I said I trusted me with it more than you…” and this line implies both veterans are scarred. A reasoning of who is safer with the weapon is a scene of imagery that is allusion, meaning the conversation either apparently or obviously took place. This is a sort of metaphor in the sense that it typifies the veteran somewhat and implies empathy, and is a typical social conversation about deciding a better choice- an almost moral metaphor. They understand each other, and depend on that. In my opinion the song is about the reader having empathy rather than sympathy but that subject is later…

As we finish the stanza:

But something happened last night that made me reconsider

I need you to drive out here and relieve me of it too

The reader now has been informed of the inevitable, last night he shot “too close”. The verse(stanza) uses one rhyming word, “you” for the first three lines and ends line 5 with “too”, but the verse does mirror the first with 5 lines with some rhyme. So far the song has some consonance and is mainly masculine rhyme. But what about “message”? Is there one? Or just not yet? At this point the reader has two expository rhyming verses with a dilemma. And the words certainly don’t have Ballad Stanza, so the reader is somewhat aware(in my opinion) that this is a prescriptive approach as the lines invoke a silent prescription about how the world should be, meaning 1) The world should not have people shooting people; and 2) Can we help veterans of wars with psychological problems in a more successful manner? Here, as a reader the only sound I can hear is a euphonic sort of “click” from the crispness of the words. The crispness reminds me of an action of a rifle being engaged. I must admit that I have read the lyrics 1000 times to get rid of the music that came with the words- and that is hard, but manageable.

My Guitar

Good songs are hard to get rid of in your memory.

So far the lyric contains two stanzas with five rhyming lines, of an apparent conversation or request between the two characters. The third stanza brings the reader closer to the person un-named- Ray’s war buddy. The first line starts: “I figured after 40 years,…”, and to me this directly implies Vietnam only because of the timing of the line(today) and the end of the Vietnam War, 40 years ago. In poetry this is called ‘allusion’.  The line proceeds: “…I wouldn’t still be having nightmares.” The internal rhyme makes the lines flow and seem poetic, and that continues for the rest of the stanza. This stanza has the two longest lines of the lyric, but changes to 4 lines with this verse. The 4 lines end with “nightmares”, “over”, “shorter”, and “fuse”. The consonance rhymes flow and mesh with each other to give the reader an idea of the scene at this point with the third line “…and the nights ain’t getting shorter” representing the sleepless mind in a perfect, truthful, accurate picture. That picture is further viewed in line 4:

“Only my patience and checkbook and fuse”

The reader can see the irony here, and I would assume anyone could relate to that, nights shouldn’t be sleepless, neither should checkbooks or fuses be short. This expands on the first two stanzas with a personal reflection, which is crucial to not only understand the character, but to feel empathy for Ray’s friend AND any other veteran suffering the effects of war memory and social dysfunction. The nights are long and sleepless, as opposed to long and restful. The fuse short, rather than patient and long. The implication here also is that if nights are sleepless, then shorter nights are better.

Most critics of lyrics would have noticed by now that there hasn’t been a refrain in Ray’s Automatic Weapon. The fourth stanza is the first three lines of the first stanza. In my opinion this “bookend” refrain helps to solidify and summarize the song. Even when read without the music, this approach reminds the reader of the insides of this story, and at the end helps to complete the lyrical verse.

Wes Freed's DBT art. (Author's home)

The song itself sounds great. It is a pleasing sound to my musical tastes. I played it for a friend and the song AND the lyrics struck him as very good. But because of the lyrics, this song “means” something. In my opinion, it is a social message as well as artistic, very common for musicians and writers. The words are exquisite while being poetry and song. The rhyming and stanza construction relay a sense of purpose and urgency by getting less lines as the reader progresses, almost a projective verse in a sense of dwindling time. The musical tone of the song portrays that as well, with a sort of ripping, whining guitar sound and a Hammond B3 sounding off the hours as minutes and minutes as seconds. So, in my opinion, the lyric or song, was written with a certain caring and quality that makes it readable and listenable, if not pleasurable. The lyrics are very good as is the rhyming scheme and flow. The story and characters are well developed in a short time, and the story is conveyed with a moral message. The story provokes one’s mind to “solve” these vet’s issues, or at least help by showing empathy and thinking critically. I truly think this song IS poetry. The song was dissected, explicated, and analyzed for technical soundness and poetic story quality. This reader thinks it a successful song for it is beautiful poetry and a good story with a message; and definitely for the ears as well as the eye.

For further review:

Ray’s Automatic Weapon, acoustic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaYak7Rs8MA&list=HL1344839059&feature=mh_lolz

Drive-By Truckers website:

http://www.drivebytruckers.com/

The CD “Gogo Boots”, Drive-By Truckers 2011, or any DBT recording.

Sources:

^1:pg629; ^2:pg10. An Introduction to Poetry by X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia: Technical terms.11^th Edition 2005

Wikipedia: Poetry and specifically Greek history for a brief “song” review, not used literally in the essay, but more for critical thought.

Drive-By Truckers: Gogo Boots and lyrics for Ray’s Automatic Weapon, 2011

Interview: Derick Johnson, songwriter and guitar man, asked to listen and only give a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”, to gauge impact of the song and lyrics. Aug2012.

YouTube: Acoustic version, specifically to gauge mood and tone.(link above)
Definitions:

•             hyperbole- exageration or rhetoric, a figure of speech
•             litote- opposite of hyperbole, an understatement
•             euphonic- pleasant sounding consonance
•             consonance- flowing and stable harmony/chord