Friday Five: Arson

Don’t try this at home. You wouldn’t do well in prison.

5. Rosanne Cash – “Burn Down This Town”

Cash paints a bleak, eerie picture with this song from Black Cadillac: “The hills are burnin’, fields turn to steel / The big house is haunted with what we don’t feel / All the streets are empty, no one ever comes around / So you know they won’t make a sound / Burn down this town.”

 

4. Jimbo Mathus – “Burn the Honky Tonk”

This country weeper is from Mathus’ Blue Light EP, which was released last month. Hopefully someone rescues the booze before Mathus channels his inner firebug.

3. Paul Thorn – “Burn Down the Trailer Park”

Hey, Paul, I know you’re upset about your woman, who keeps coming home “with Aqua Velva on her breath,” but that’s no reason to take it out on the pink flamingos.

 

2. Gretchen Peters – “Independence Day”

As far as story-songs go, you can’t get much better than this one, in which an abused woman burns down her home. Unlike Martina McBride and her stunning recording of the song, Peters isn’t a belter, but her version is no less powerful.

 

1. Dolly Parton – “Evening Shade”

Old Mrs. Bailey is the meanest matron at Evening Shade, a home for juvenile delinquents, beating a girl half to death for wetting the bed. But “understanding isn’t learned from punishment and anger / An iron has no gentle touch and love ain’t learned from hate,” so the kids get their kerosene-soaked revenge when Mrs. Bailey is taking her afternoon nap.