Hank Williams, Jr.: Bard for a New (er, Old) Age?

I’ve been meaning to do a big ol’ rundown of all the cool things other media-ey people here in town have been doing lately, but I know that’s gonna take me a while, and dammit, I just can’t let this one fall through the cracks. The best thing I’ve read lately, locally or otherwise, is Houston Press staffer Chris Rasmussen’s brutal, yet insanely funny, dissection of Hank Williams, Jr.’s latest opus, “McCain-Palin Tradition” (which I’m going to go out on a limb and assume is just a badly-thought-out rewrite of his old classic “Family Tradition”). Rasmussen’s “please, help us, daddy” bit cracks me up every time.

As for the song itself: wow. Mr. Williams, you’re one of the few country performers I actually like, but damn. That is just not good. In fact, it’s just about new-Guns-N-Roses-track bad. Out-and-out political songs suck in general, but this one sounds like an SNL sketch gone horribly awry. At the same time, though, I feel compelled to note that the original “Family Tradition” was basically Williams defending his right to get stoned out of his head and get into fights every damn night of the week. Which, when you think about it, makes the rewrite of the song into a Republican hymn pretty damn hysterical.