"I been gettin' up each morning with the hair of the downward dog." That fantastic lyric belongs to "Marlboro Vinyasa," the latest single from Willi Carlisle's Tyler Childers-produced double album The Universal Bubba. Unlike prior single "Mason Jar At The Center Of The World," which was the kind of a traditional reel you could squaredance to, this song is a barroom country-rocker. The press release repeatedly uses the word "smoky," which would be appropriate even if a cigarette brand wasn't name-checked in the title.
Carlisle offered this backstory:
There’s a great bar in the Quad Cities called the Raccoon Motel. After a few gigs there, I got to talking to somebody who hosts yoga, and said they do their breathing exercises on the sticky floor and do sun salutations facing the Marlboro advertisements. I couldn’t get over the irony: yoga breathing exercises and cigarettes. What an American thing, to find the wheel of samsara in a pint glass! All I brought to the table was a little shuffle, sort of something out of Springsteen’s Nebraska in its spareness but with a feel from the Band, maybe like the songs “Jemima Surrender” or “This Wheel’s On Fire.” The band did the rest, took it to space, made it groove.
Traverse the galaxies alongside Carlisle's band below.
The Universal Bubba is out 11/6 via Signature Sounds. Pre-order it here.
