Moving again away from his best known alt-country style, Kurt Wagner returns with an extraordinary experimental fusion of jazz, gospel and soul with this song that imagines a post-apocalyptic world where ex-police dogs roam. Wagner explains: “During the unrest surrounding the horrific injustice in Minneapolis in 2020, I had been re-listening to a song by Blind Blake, ‘Police Dog Blues.’ Of note, it was originally recorded in 1929, the year my father was born, and it seems John Peel played it on his show on Sept. 11, 1968. It was deceptively upbeat musically and not what I remembered at all. Then I remembered a police dog is a Shepherd.”
That itinerant flavour from the 1929 blues number can also be enjoyed below.
Wagner usually produces Lambchop albums, but this song, and The Bible, were worked in Minneapolis to with Ryan Olsen (Poliça, Gayngs) and Andrew Broder.
Video director Isaac Gale adds: “White privilege and apathy in the face of disastrous reality. I don’t think it’s stretching it to compare the police in Minneapolis – where myself and the producers of the record, Ryan Olson and Andrew Broder, all live – to a human-made catastrophic disaster.”
Out on City Slang/Merge Records.
I'm at the ball game
It is a Saturday
Popcorn on my shoes
Out on the warning track
Watching the dogs sing
Police dog blues
It's a fool's game
It's a fool's game (I'm furious)
[Post-Chorus]
A lover takes a page
And everything's amazing
It's not so hard to lose
It's not so hard to lose
Waiting on the rain delay
Just give me a chance
I'm not my father by the campfire
Preview
And for the record
I can't find my shoes
Maybe it's here
You pull me up
Every time we break
And I can't talk
It's really not up
To me to
Just give me a chance
Givе me a chance
It's a fool's game (I'm furious)
It's a fool's gamе (I'm furious)
A lover takes a page
And everything's amazing
It's not so hard to lose
It's not so hard to lose
Waiting on the rain delay
Just give me a chance
Just give me a chance
Funny how we go so far
Gonna get some coffee
By myself
Is it a moment?
There's no limit
I'm not even in it
Better dead than read
I'm getting wet now
By myself
Here comes the chorus
You wanna hear the chorus?
Let all the children sing
(Police dog blues)
It's a fool's game (I'm furious, furious)
It's a fool's game (I'm furious, so furious)
It's a fool's game
Waiting on the rain delay
It's not so hard to lose
It's not so hard to lose
Time the cheek
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