Hear Mike Cooley, Part Four: "Bob"

Previous Installment's of "Hear Mike Cooley?

part 1
part 2
part 3

Yet another gem off 2008's Brighter Than Creations Dark

"Bob"

It's been well established that Mike Cooley is as enigmatic of a musician as they come. One day he's weaving a crooked tale over ancient blues guitar riffs, the next he emerges from the dark, turns on the bright stage lights, and delivers a classic, straightforward country song perfectly. "Bob" tells the story a man with a lot of dogs who mows his mother's lawn and is probably gay. It is genuinely hard to tell if Cooley is mocking the country genre's simplicity or is proving that he can deliver a solid, perfectly served country tune with clever lyrics to match. Here, Cooley plays with cliches and then tosses them out the window: we have beer and fishing, but we also have a potentially lonely dude, an aging mother, and a certain sense of frustration with the modern world.