Baggage: Essential DBT # 6 (Hood)

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"Baggage", the last song of DBT's most recent release American Band, is Patterson Hood's tribute to the late Robin Williams. Per usual, Hood is able to use an event, character, or person as a highway to open up the land and explore additional themes. Here, Hood relates William's tragic suicide to his own struggles with depression. A stark electric guitar riff opens the song and seems to almost stand there as a monument in the desert. It's a powerfully sad riff, and is eventually accompanied by Cooley's desert flare of a lead guitar. The band fills in with a slight key change during the chorus.

Hood starts the song by singing "I was listening to the radio/ When they said that you were gone/ Already feeling more than a little down/ Mood swings run rampant/ On both sides of my family/ Like an albatross I carry around". Again, Hood is able to weave together diverging narratives to paint a masterpiece. Great song, indeed. Here it sung here over that desert monument riff:



"Baggage" marks the last of Patterson Hood song's that belong in the essential DBT catalog. Don't forget, there's still Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell to go.

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