Our love for James McMurtry goes back many, many years. However, when we saw this article on Slate, we knew the shit was going to hit the fan...but in a good way. Slate writer Ron Rosenbaum made this observation:
"Seriously. It's time to retire ol' Francis Scott Key's "The
Star-Spangled Banner" and go with a song that more truly represents the
America of today: post-crash, pre-apocalypse, meth- and money-addicted,
heading down the highway to self-destruction."
Rosenbaum was takling--of course--about McMurtry's song "Choctaw Bingo," which he calls "New-national-anthem-level genius." Other than the fact that it would suck to have to stand for almost 10 minutes before every sporting event, we couldn't agree more.
We have searched and searched for a high-quality video of McMurtry performing that song, but to no avail. So we decided to make our own. We captured the following video during our showcase at Threadgill's in Austin during SXSW. Enjoy.