Jason Isbell Continues Hot Streak with “White Man’s World,” “If We Were Vampires”

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit performing at the House of Blues in Anaheim, California, on March 15. Photo by Lindsey Best

On Thursday Jason Isbell dropped the fourth single from his highly anticipated album The Nashville Sound, which is due out June 16.

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The song, “White Man’s World,” functions as a worthy cleanup hitter, coming to the plate as it were with the bases already loaded with a trio of great cuts.

Like “Hope The High Road” and “Cumberland Gap” before it, “White Man’s World” filters the political through the first-person, in this case examining issues of race and gender and how one’s understanding of them is bound by perspective.

In the first verse, the white male narrator mulls his baby daughter’s future over an ominous-sounding organ and crunchy guitar: “I thought this world could be her’s one day/ But her momma knew better”. Later, he considers the darker currents of America’s past as prologue: “I’ve got the bones of the red man under my feet/ The highway runs through the burial grounds/ Past the oceans of cotton.”

Yet, in this day of increasing division and cultural fragmentation, sometimes accelerated by a hyper-awareness made possible in the internet age, the chorus offers a unifying message : “You’re still breathing it’s not too late/ We’re all carrying one big burden, sharing one fate.”

“If We Were Vampires,” released a few weeks ago, is one of the best songs ever written about marriage, right up there with Bruce Springsteen’s “If I Should Fall Behind.” “Vampires” is also the ultimate Goth love song, wise with the knowledge that no romance can burn bright without the shadow of death. Eat your heart out, Robert Smith.

Linda Ronstadt, “Skylark”