Drive-By Truckers Songs That Sound Like a Dive Bar
"It's the middle of the afternoon, drink like it's midnight."
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Back when I still traveled home for the holidays, my Christmas Eve tradition was to finish up family stuff and meet friends at a local dive bar. Rather than emanate a sad-drunk vibe, dive bars on Christmas Eve feel alive. They’re usually decorated for the holidays (Those lights have been up for two years? Doesn’t matter.) and filled with folks seeking a few hours of solace with friends.
With NYC temperatures in the 20s this week, a dive bar is about the only place I want to drink, besides my own couch. Now feels as good a time as any to talk about dive bars and Drive-By Truckers. While the Truckers only have a few lyrics that explicitly reference bars, they do have songs that capture the dive bar’s essence.
I love a good dive bar. I come from a solid dive-bar town, and I did most of my early drinking in dive bars. These bars offer a warm, familiar comfort that's ready to receive you no matter where you are in the world. I often seek them out when I travel, because dive bars promise a fleeting sense of community, a "we're all here right now" unity.
People can debate the definition of dive bar, but in my mind, the criteria are very clear. Although the term originally referred to a basement bar that you "dove" into, we didn’t have basements where I grew up, so that qualifier never crossed my mind. A dive bar is unpretentious but not shitty. It smells like decades of spilled drinks and has the energy of Friday night rich and Saturday night sniffles. If there is a TV, it’s not playing sports. If there are windows, they are limited. The bathroom might be weird.
A dive bar should feel welcoming, not hostile. (Beware the cop bar, which can present as dive-y but has a very different energy.) A great deal of credit goes to the dive-bartenders, usually good-timers who don’t take any shit. The decor might be dusty, but the glassware is clean. If it serves food, it’s nothing fancy. On a good night, it won't feel sad. It might open very early or close very late.
Nancy Einhart
Fix a drink, have a seat, and enjoy this list of DBT songs that capture the dive-bar spirit. If you want to follow along, here's a little playlist. Paid subscribers: stay tuned for a very well-researched list of my favorite dive bars!
“Shit Shots Count”
“Shit Shots Count” sounds like a honky tonk, with the horn section playing the role of patrons shouting to be heard. Although this song isn’t literally about a dive bar, the imagery evokes the general vibe of one — particularly the lyrics “put your cigarette out, get your hat back on / don’t mix up which is which,” as well as the truly brilliant poetry of “trophy tail wives taking boner pill rides for the price of a happy meal.”
The chorus always makes me think of the titular road house in the 1989 movie “Road House,” where people got into bloody fights and where they might also serve steak.
“Shit shots count if the table’s tilted
just pay the man who levels the floor
Pride's what you charge a proud man for having
Shame is what you sell to a whore
Meat's just meat and it’s all born dying,
some is tender and some is tough
Somebody’s gotta mop up the A-1
somebody’s gotta mop up the blood”
“Girls Who Smoke”
Although this song was inspired by a British music festival, it reminds me of my beloved Zeitgeist in San Francisco, where on any given afternoon, people are definitely drinking like it’s midnight, where you might have to use a porta-potty, and where it’s probably freezing cold in August.
“It's August and freezing, the headliner's cheesy
The Port-O-Pottys are shaking and wheezing
The catering sucks and vendors blow
It's the middle of the afternoon
Drink like it's midnight, time for the show”
Nancy Einhart
“The Opening Act”
This song is based on true events that took place at a shitty bar in Columbus, GA. As Patterson Hood explains on the live recording from HeAthens Homecoming in 2019:
“This song is a fucking true story. It’s such a true story that I was actually writing it while it was happening. . . . And yes, there was a mechanical bull. And yes, they did have to call an ambulance.”
Calling an ambulance because an old drunk man fell off a mechanical bull is very dive bar.
“Welcome to Club XIII”
Another song inspired by a real bar — in this case, a honky tonk on the edge of a dry county on the Alabama/Tennessee state line. According to Patterson, Club XIII was the least-shitty bar out of several shitty state line bars, its classiness telegraphed by its use of Roman numerals. “Welcome to Club XIII” sounds like a bar band with plenty of room to spread out — because everyone is in the parking lot waiting for the headliner.
“Welcome to Club XIII
Penny beer and cheap cocaine
Girls warmed up by tanning beds
Orphans left out in the rain”
Nancy Einhart
“The Fourth Night of My Drinking”
Like a bad night at a dive bar, this song starts out having fun (“It was all in fun, I didn't hurt no one”), then gradually descends into darkness.
“On the second night of my drinking, I was looking for my car
And as luck would have it I found it parked outside my favorite bar”
When the drinker discovers his car parked outside the bar, you think to yourself “at least he didn’t drive home!” But then the narrator is like, “hold my beer” — and tells us about night four: “On the fourth night of my drinking, I had to go it all alone / As my friends list was shrinking and I was sinking like a stone.”
“Goddamn Lonely Love”
Probably the most beautiful-sounding song on this list, but when you listen to the lyrics, you hear the sad-drunk dive-bar energy, including the description of a man so desperate for a drink that he’s in and out of the bar “before his ashes hit the floor.”
“So I'll take two of what you're having and I'll take all of what you got
to kill this goddamn lonely, goddamn lonely love.”
“21st Century USA”
This song details the modern landscape of Anytown, USA, where chain stores and fast food restaurants butt up against a payday loan place and “a good-time bar to get your bad swerve on.” Dive bars often have a “I can’t believe that place still exists” defiance — a rare locally owned business that’s been there forever. That’s the kind of bar I imagine in these lyrics.
“Men working hard for not enough, at best
Women working just as hard for less
They get together late at night at bars
Bang each other like crashing cars”
“Cartoon Gold”
Another Cooley song I look forward to deciphering someday, but the idea of wearing sunglasses inside a bar at night is very dive bar.
“Tending bar in LA after dark must be like mining cartoon gold
Rocks that won't cooperate and tools that drive you crazy must get old
I think about you when I can and sometimes when I do I still get caught
sitting in a bar in LA after dark with my sunglasses on”
