I first wrote a review of Snipe Hunter back right after it was released, on July 26. You can read it here. However, I feel the need to revisit my thoughts as my perspective on this album has totally changed; at the time, I thought it was decent with some standout songs. It has since become one of my favorite country records of all time.
I think I made a few mistakes when writing the first review that I want to acknowledge. I had only listened through twice, and I don’t think that was nearly enough to get a good feel for it. And furthermore, I only listened in headphones. This was a critical error, though I think it is a valid criticism that the mix doesn’t sound great in headphones. However, on speakers, or even better on vinyl (how I’m listening this very moment), it sounds fucking incredible. The mix, though very complex in most songs, is fairly clear and the quirky production choices work much better with real stereo spread provided by a proper set of speakers. In this article, I’m going to mostly focus on what has changed for me, some standout songwriting moments that I initially missed, and why I think this record is such a masterwork.
It’s also important to note that this album has been the subject of much arguing and discussion on the internet over the last few months. Some people just want to see Tyler make Purgatory over and over again, some people hate the extra production elements, and some people just hate Tyler because he doesn’t share their political beliefs.1 Some people also love this album and have contributed a lot of interesting thoughts to the discourse on the meanings of certain songs. All of this discussion has certainly influenced my feelings on the album, though I’d like to think most of my thoughts here are my own.
Eatin’ Big Time
I think I was pretty on the nose about the meaning of this song with the first go-round – Tyler wrestling with his meteoric rise to fame after growing up a poor kid in Appalachia. It’s also catchy as hell and one of my favorites off Snipe Hunter. My favorite verse is still the one I highlighted before, though I think it is even more layered than I initally thought:
Keep my time on my Weiss
Ya goddamn right, I’m flexin’
‘Cause a thousand-dollar watch is fine enough flex for me
Have you ever got to hold and blow a thousand fucking dollars?
It runs for forty hours and then it winds itself to sleep
As I said before, “I think the point here is he has millions of dollars, but even just $1000 feels ridiculous to spend on a watch (which in the world of high end watches is nothing, just ask John Mayer). It feels good, but then maybe it also feels weird because he grew up around so much poverty.” After more listens and reading some discussions, though, I think it goes even deeper. First of all, I think the line “hold and blow a thousand fucking dollars” doesn’t just refer to the watch, but also, well, a thousand dollars worth of blow. Childers was somewhat known for his drug-addled lifestyle until he got sober, and here he’s highlighting the difference in how he spends his money then vs. now. “It runs for forty hours and then winds itself to sleep”…yeah, cocaine will do that to you. This theme of wrestling with his sobriety is present in a number of tunes throughout the record, most significantly “Getting to the Bottom” and “Down Under”. More on that later.
Somewhat unbelievably, though, there seems to be another meaning in here too. Forty hours is a very specific number – the number of hours in the normal working week – and I think it also refers to the grind of adult life: “It’s fought for like a bitch, and it’s a bitch to keep it goin’ / When they ain’t nobody knowin’ any prayer you’ve ever sang.” This falls in line with the general theme of this song being about changes in status and class, but clearly even after making millions and becoming a star Tyler hasn’t forgot about the struggles of the working man.
Apparently (so I was told), the last verse holds some Beyoncé references as a nod to his wife who is a big fan (something about lemonade and a “surfboard in the kitchen”). It feels like every time I listen to this song I discover something new. It’s packed with hidden meanings, references, and overall an excellent addition to the Childers catalog.
Cuttin’ Teeth
Ok, I was a little obnoxious about this one last time. I refused to even give it a chance because I was really disappointed in the vocal filtering, as I am a strong believer in letting Tyler’s voice shine front and center in the mix. That said – this is still a great song. It’s about Tyler cuttin’ his teeth in the old days just trying to hustle and make it. I initially thought it was a strange choice for the second track, but I actually think it’s a great juxtaposition with “Eatin’ Big Time”. We start out where he is now, and then get a window into the past. The classic country feel as compared to the more southern rock approach of the first track only hammers this juxtaposition in further. We also get another reference to his past drug use and money struggles, giving us a clear connection to the previous song:
Of his pants, he has had tightenin’ ’round his body
Livin’ off tavern’s fare, drowning in the greaseFrontin’ him, a country band
Roaddoggin’ in a stripped-out van
Bummin’ powder in the bar light
When they were cuttin’ teeth
Oneida
Not much to add here. An excellent tune about wanting to fuck a MILF. What more could you ask for?
Getting to the Bottom
Continuing our theme of reflecting on sobriety in perhaps it’s most obvious form is “Getting to the Bottom.” A song about Tyler wondering what his friends from back home are up to, if they are still the degenerates he once hung out with. It pretty much speaks for itself:
I wonder if my friends are fast asleep
Or are they off together somewhere stumblin’ through the streets?
Makin’ memories that will be forgotten with the moon
Leavin’ them to wonder why their legs and arms are bruisedDo their livers scream for water? Are their brains about to swell
Through the soft part of their temple while they grind their teeth like hell?
Are they talking o’er each other? Leavin’ neary a stone unturned
Getting to the bottom of an angst hard-fought to learnI never wanna get that way again
Feelin’ like my head’s a house with a roommate movin’ in
Who’s insistently talkin’, never slowing down
Possessed with evil urges, burn it to the ground
As someone who has had to take my own steps back from drugs and alchohol at times, this song really resonates. Wondering if you’re missing out, but ultimately realizing you are better off without. This song certainly paints a (mildly graphic) picture that you are in fact better off without in a way that feels reflective and not condescending while still bluntly truthful. Like many songs about addiction, it also has some great wordplay around the term “rock bottom” (in this case, “Getting to the Bottom”). Another that comes to mind is the Drive-By-Truckers’s incredible song “Gravity’s Gone”.
Bitin’ List
Some people have read way too far into this song – Saving Country Music called it “hateful”2 – but I think it’s hilarious and fun, in addition to being just a well-written song. As I said before: “It’s tongue-in-cheek, catchy, and lighthearted in the spirit of “Ever Lovin’ Hand,” “Bus Route,” and “Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?”. One of my favorite things about Childers is his consistent ability to write good songs that are also a little goofy.” Don’t have much else to add besides the fact that this one has basically been on repeat for the last few months.
Nose on the Grindstone
This is one that my thoughts haven’t changed on too much. Given that the album is clearly about Tyler expressing his feelings on fame and sobriety, I do feel that it is less out of place than I initially thought. I vastly prefer the solo acoustic version, but it is still cool to hear it in a full-band, non-live setting. Nothing needs to be said about the songwriting, I think we can all agree it is a masterpiece.
Watch Out
Nothing to add here. I liked the song on the inital listen, I still do, but I think it is one of the more forgettable songs on the record. That’s not really a slight against it, it’s just many of the others are so memorable.
Down Under
Wow, I completely missed the point of this song when I first listened. I do still think it is kind of annoying and sounds like a Christmas song with the bells, but, after listening more closely to the lyrics, it is clearly about getting out from the yoke of addiction and when seen through that lense, it’s a pretty brilliant metaphor. We see some more wordplay around “rock bottom” – being “down under” – and using Australia’s cute but sometimes angry or disease-riddled critters (boxing Kangaroos and Koala’s with chlamydia) as metaphors for the double-edged sword that is drug use. I was slightly skeptical of this interpretation at first, but one of the last verses makes it quite clear:
There’s always somethin’ thrilling
To get your heart a racin’
No shit, I’ve had the notion
But that ain’t what I’m chasin’
And life is more than treasures born
From sense a light and pleasure
And I would not take a thing
From my journey out under
Once again, Tyler is painting a vivid picture of both the thrills and huge downsides of addiction, and accepting the fact that his sobriety is permanent and the best thing for him. Sometimes (really shitty) people think that once artists get sober, their music suffers and that they should go back to using in order to make great art again. This is a disgusting take, and proven incorrect again and again by artists like Tyler, Jason Isbell, Evan Felker, the list goes on. I mean for one thing most of those guys would be dead if they hadn’t gotten sober. But it’s nice to hear an artist be so vulnerable about not just the struggles of addiction, but the benefits of sobriety.
Poachers
A brilliant tune that continues to use hunting as a metaphor for certain struggles in Childers’s life – this time, shithead fans who leave over his political views. Tyler is fairly outspoken about his views, as I wrote before, “He’s faced ire from the right (especially the Christian right) for other songs like “Long Violent History” that he recently performed live for the first time during the L.A. ICE protests at the Hollywood Bowl, while projecting the words to the famous poem “First They Came.” It was a strong and honestly brave act of musical protest that once again lost him a number of MAGA fans. Good riddance, I say, but I think this song is about him wrestling with the fact that some fans, and I imagine some people back home, have written him off since he became vocal about the issues he believes in. That some people see him as some kind of “poacher” or bad guy when in reality he’s just going about his life.”
However, I’ve changed my thoughts a bit, and I don’t think he is really worrying about people seeing him as a “poacher”, although he writes about the negative reactions:
I can hear ’em now talkin’, ah, God, it is scandalous
His Papaw’d be rollin’, I don’t know where he strayed
I know that you’d know him, he’s the one on the rad’ya
He’s the one with the vid’ya of the coal minin’ gaysI can hear ’em now talkin’, ah, God, it is scandalous
He could have been somethin’ if he weren’t such a mess
If he hadn’t went broke, God cancel him sideways
We lost us another to the others, I guess
The “coal minin’ gays” line obviously refers to the right wing backlash he received after releasing “In Your Love,” a beautiful love song with an accompanying video that shows two male coal miners falling in love in a time that wouldn’t accept them. It’s the least kind of offensive political music – not shoving anything down anyone’s throats, just showing love and acceptance. And that lost him a lot of fans. I think where I got it wrong though is the idea that he is worried about these reactions. In the last verse he makes it pretty clear he doesn’t give a shit about that and is going to continue to live his life how he wants:
And I’d stand there like Dufresne, far enough from the searchlight
And flip off you bastards in the sewage and rain
I’d howl like a dog, I’d sound like a real on
I’d burn like a candle and grin in your face
Hey folks who hate Tyler because he’s accepting of gay people, he’s got a message for you.
Snipe Hunt
Title track, still not my favorite. It’s catchy, fast paced, grungey southern rock but it’s quite hard to make out the words. This is one song where I haven’t really changed perspective on the production – it needs a little less to really be heard.
Tirtha Yatra
I didn’t dig into this song too much before, and I think that was a shame. This is an excellent, dare I say brilliant, piece of music, especially when paired with the following track. It tells the store of the Bhagavad Gita, a spiritual text from a sect of Hinduism, and Tyler’s own experience with discovering his spirituality and sense of dharma. I’ve seen some shitty comments along the lines of, “what is this? Hinduism doesn’t belong in country music!” Which is of course, ridiculous, given the storied past of various artists getting entangled and transformed by eastern spiritual teachings (hint: The Beatles), but also just straight up rude and xenophobic. I saw a video of an Indian-American teenager getting so stoked that her culture found it’s way into somewhat mainstream country music, the genre she loved so much. It was exactly how I felt when I first heard “In Your Love,” and felt represented for the first time by a genre that had too long been afraid to talk about gay people. It actually made me a little emotional. If you can’t see the joy that this basic, unoffensive representation gives people, maybe you just don’t have any empathy, and don’t deserve to enjoy such an excellent song.
Tomcat and a Dandy
I’m just going to repeat what I said before, as I stand by it:
“This song, though you might not guess from the name, starts out with a chant of the “Hare Krishna” a Sanskrit mantra associated with some Hindu sects. Obviously building off the Indian spiritual theme of the previous song, it’s arranged in a very interesting way – a canon, where a chorus of people split into sections sing overlapping parts. In some ways it sounds almost like a Christian hymn, especially with the layered fiddles. It’s a really cool combination of Appalachia and Hindu spirituality. Honestly, I’m not sure what the lyrics are about, but I think it’s some kind of reflection on his life. This song is incredibly unique and stands out from the rest of the album with its fusion of different world music and religious influences.”
The thematic part of the record essentially ends here, and “Tomcat and a Dandy” concludes it beautifully, with Tyler reflecting on his life and the various religious musical influences combining to build a really interesting song.
Dirty Ought Trill
Outlaw-line-dancing-fun. A great way to wrap up the album. We started off with a bang, it’s only fitting we end with another one. This is maybe the catchiest song Tyler Childers has ever written, and I do not say that lightly. It’s fun, it’s funny, and it’s unequivocally Tyler.
Conclusion
As you can probably see, my thoughts on this album are quite a bit more positive than before. I actually have grown to love a lot of the production weirdness that I initially criticized, and am truly impressed with the thematic continuity throughout the record. The hunting motif is nearly ever-present, but used in a myriad of different ways for Tyler to reflect on his life, his fame, his sobriety, and everything in between. Like all of Tyler’s other albums, it also feels extremely cohesive, with very few songs feeling out of place, and the instrumentation, while varied, stays consistent enough that it feels like one band is playing the whole time. All in all, it’s fucking great and probably my favorite Tyler record after Purgatory. If it’s not for you, that’s ok. If you were unsure on the first listen and haven’t given it another try, I urge you to do so. I have a feeling it will grow on you! Thanks for reading, folks.
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