Shut It Tight by T-Bone Burnett

Sometimes it’s hard to know where a song’s going but easy to enjoy the ride. T-Bone Burnett’s “Shut It Tight” delivers bluegrass music performed at a driven tempo, almost rambling in its pretty way, pieced together with a glorious electric fiddle and who knows what else. It gives off the atmosphere of the mythic gentlemanly American South; it’s the music of a more refined country in a more refined age, like the evolution you’d think classical music might pursue if left in the hands of confederate soldiers. It’s the ideal soundtrack for when you’re riding a horse somewhere important.

I find it hard sometimes to say the way that I feel
I do the very things I hate to do
I act like a child and I’m afraid of what is real
And so I try to cover up the truth

I stumble like a drunk along this crazy path I walk
I have a hundred thousand questions too
I’ll go to any length to prove that nothing is my fault
Then later on I will deny the proof

There’s no chorus, rather the traveling music swells between verses. The song is a journey just as life is a journey, and the lyrics are pauses for observation along the way.

I don’t like to win but then again I hate to lose
And in between is something I can’t stand
I don’t care what you think and I hope that you approve
I am just an ordinary man

You may approach the song with a mystery in mind: what does the title mean? After the song lulls you into forgetting even what the riddle is, the answer in the last line strikes like a blast of cleverness.

Sometimes I want to stop and crawl back into the womb
And sometimes I cannot tell wrong from right
But I ain’t gonna quit until I’m laid in my tomb
And even then they better shut it tight

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!