Flatlanders – Dallas

Well Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes

What a find this was for me. When CB recommended Joe Ely a while back, I found that he played in this band from 1972 until now. Their music is not the tears in my beer Nashville country music that you heard at the time and sometimes now. I would call it Americana…they have developed a big following following over the years. Comparing their music to country music at the time…this sounds like it came from a different planet.

They were formed in 1972 by three singer-songwriters: Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock. The band was born out of the music scene in Lubbock, Texas, where all three members grew up. They recorded their first album, All American Music in Nashville. Initially, the album was released only as an 8-track tape by Plantation Records, with the title “Jimmie Dale and the Flatlanders.” This limited release received little attention at the time, and the band members soon went their separate ways to pursue solo careers.

They then released an album in 1980 called One More Road. Their debut album was re-released in 1990 as More a Legend Than A Band after all of them had some success during their solo careers. They have released 9 albums including a live album in 2004 from 1972 to 2021. Their last album was released in 2021 called Treasure Of Love. They started to chart in the music charts in the 2000s.

Dallas was on their debut album All American Music released in 1972. This song was written by Jimmie Dale Gilmore. The track has a cool tool/instrument on it that always interested me…Steve Wesson is playing a saw on this. Take a listen to this and I included a much more recent live cut from Austin City Limits.

In 2016 The Flatlanders were voted into the Austin Music Awards Hall of Fame.

Jimmie Dale Gilmore: “The hook line of the song occurred to me while I was actually flying into Dallas, the line just presented itself to me. I had all those mixed feelings about the city and the song just came gradually. I’ve never felt that I’ve got it down right though. I’ve always been a perfectionist about that song. Joe also recorded it several times before he got the version that they put on the Musta Notta Gotta Lotta album. I’ve had a strange relationship with the song. I’ve had periods when I wish I’d never written it, then I’ve rediscovered it, looking at it through different eyes.”

Jimmie Dale Gilmore: “It so happened that in 1970 we all happened to be back in Lubbock, I had been in Austin working with a band called the Hub City Movers. Joe had been traveling in Europe and Butch had been in San Francisco. We just coincidentally moved back to Lubbock at the same time and started playing together. There was no design to put a band together as such but the chemistry was so great that it just took on a life of its own. We all had a common love of folk music, country and country blues-but then we also loved the Beatles. We had very eclectic taste. There was great radio in Lubbock at that time especially the border stations at night. We listened to it all.”

Joe Ely on the album:  “It’s pretty crude but there’s a certain flavor about the record. It had an eerie, lonesome sound which reflected our roots in Lubbock and the wind, the dust and the environment.”

Music Critic Robert Christgau: In 1972, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, and leader Jimmie Dale Gilmore–drumless psychedelic cowboys returned to Lubbock from Europe and San Francisco and Austin–recorded in Nashville for Shelby Singleton, and even an eccentric like the owner of the Sun catalogue and “Harper Valley P.T.A.” must have considered them weird. With a musical saw for theremin effects, their wide-open spaceyness was released eight-track only, and soon a subway troubadour and an architect and a disciple of Guru Mararaji had disappeared back into the diaspora. In cowpunk/neofolk/psychedelic-revival retrospect, they’re neotraditionalists who find small comfort in the past, responding guilelessly and unnostalgically to the facts of displacement in a global village that includes among its precincts the high Texas plains. They’re at home. And they’re lost anyway. A-

Dallas

Did you ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night?
Well Dallas is a jewel, oh yeah, Dallas is a beautiful sight
And Dallas is a jungle but Dallas gives a beautiful light
Did you ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night?

Well, Dallas is a woman who will walk on you when you’re down
But when you are up, she’s the kind you want to take around
But Dallas ain’t a woman to help you get your feet on the ground
And Dallas is a woman who will walk on you when you’re down

Well, I came into Dallas with the bright lights on my mind,
But I came into Dallas with a dollar and a dime

Well Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes
A steel and concrete soul with a warm hearted love disguise
A rich man who tends to believe in his own lies
Yeah Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes

Well, I came into Dallas with the bright lights on my mind,
But I came into Dallas with a dollar and a dime

Did you ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night?
Well Dallas is a jewel, oh yeah, Dallas is a beautiful sight
And Dallas is a jungle but Dallas gives a beautiful light
Did you ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night?

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

46 thoughts on “Flatlanders – Dallas”

  1. I’m glad you’re helping me to keep all these names straight though I can’t promise I’ll remember tomorrow! As we chatted about I certainly know these guys but not real well. I quite enjoyed the ACL video. Given Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s solo work my awareness of these guys centers on him. They get pretty fair airplay on the Outlaw Channel as well. Thanks to CB for continuing to toss you some great music.

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    1. It’s amazing how many of these artists work together…especially Joe Ely…he is everywhere it seems…I’m learning more about Butch now.

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      1. I know in music that’s not uncommon to work with others but it seems guys like Joe Ely and Ry Cooder, I’ll throw in Rodney Crowell even for example appear in so many places!

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    1. I like the saw being played on the original…it gave it a different feel. I’ve seen people play saws before…really nice sound.

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  6. If I had a buck for every time I played this song I’d be a rich guy. First heard it on an early Joe record then went and got The Flatlanders first record and it was on there. Lots of versions. I think Aph turned me onto a Natalie Merchant and David Byrne version. That was a surprise.. Great live cut of the boys Max. Love it. The opening line is forever embedded in my head.

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    1. I was blown away by the sound alone on this one CB…that saw put it in a different zone. I need to check the other versions out.
      I like these guys a lot though.

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      1. Joe as you know I have a high regard for as a musician, performer and person. All, three are cut from the same cloth with their own style. When I first heard this cut on the original Flatlanders album , that saw grabbed my ear right away. So cool and different. They are a special bunch of folks in my book. I have never seen them as the Flatlanders but have caught all 3 solo. Great nights of music and stories. Keep this stuff coming fella.

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      2. This week I have been going over all three of them and the one I knew the least. I love Hancocks voice and his writing and I will have him coming up soon.
        I am glad they started to get recognition not that it’s all that important but more people get to hear them.

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      3. Someone hung the Dylan label on Butch (??). He’s a wordsmith that’s for sure. You gotta know these guys are tops with me like the Beatles’ Stones etc are with other folks. The music just speaks to me and moves me. Like I said before Max you are going to find so many gems. To use a worn out saying “The music chose me”.

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      4. I do! After listening to him yesterday….I picked one out of the blue….it is coming tomorrow…he does sound like Dylan and writes some like him as well. He is a little different from the other two…and that is not a bad thing.

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      6. What I usually do with these is just pick a couple of albums by random…and the first one in this case I picked…there are more I could have.

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  7. A fine write-up Max, and when the Hell did I ever imagine I’d agree 100% with Crusty Christgau? I also agree, the saw adds to the whole ‘just off-centre’ feel. I also like it when a song has a circularity and the first lines are also the last, but the story in between gives it a different context. Also, CB must have his ear to a speaker 24/7!

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    1. Thanks… Thats what I thought about Christgau…he likes no one.
      Yes CB does… one leads to another and then another.
      I have one of these guys tomorrow I haven’t covered…very different but I like it.

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    2. Cuckoos Nest soundtrack has that eerie romantic saw sound. I know a guy who plays the saw. Dresses up like a cow, Holstein. He always has a box of Band-Aids. dangerous instrument.
      It’s just a great tune obbverse. Max surprised me with it today.

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  8. Damfine song and the people of Dallas need to adopt it as their city anthem. These guys are talented. I see they getting up there in years, just under The Rolling Stones. Their voices sound great together.

    There are no accidents:
    “We just coincidentally moved back to Lubbock at the same time and started playing together.” The God of Music wanted these guys back together.

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  9. Never heard of them nor the song, but cool to add another ‘city Song’ to the list. If I lived right in Dallas I’d be chuffed. It certainly sounded old for it’s time…maybe a country equivalent of Stray Cats to rock…a throwback to two decades earlier

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  10. These guys are bigtime here in Texas, especially Fort Worth. Since Fort Worth is where the West begins and Dallas is where the East peters out, there ain’t a decent country song that would make the Big D look good. Long hair and Stetson straw hats, that’s what we call cowboy hippies here in Texas. Austin is full of them, and Dallas has the most confused Texans in the state. Fancy duds, expensive hats, $100K pickups and Rolex watches don’t make one a goat roper. These boys are the real deal. I need me a coldbeer (all one word in Texas.) Great writeup Max.

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    1. Pass me one also Phil…I could use it. I think what you described…they are now call posers? Yea I get what you are saying.
      These guys are super…I’ve only scratched the surface…I have a lot of music to listen to.

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      1. Texas country music is a genre all it’s own. It’s not Nashville sound or Bakersfield, like Haggards, but more red dirt and pickup trucks sort of thing, if that makes any sense. The recent ACM awards held in Frisco Tx showcased it pretty well. Austin is considered the live music capitol of the world, but there are as many great talents in Terlingua and Amarillo as there is there. Kinda like “Nashville Cats, been playing since they was babies…”

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      2. I google Texas Songwriters and they never let me down Phil. I also check out the Hall of Fame of Texas Songwriters.
        The depth they have is incredible in writing…it’s like you all grow them there.

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      3. Good analogy, Max. Maybe the best ones would be Cindy Walker, Townes Van Zandt and Billy Joe Shaver and Willie Nelson. It doesn’t get better than those four. It’s like they sprout from the plowed earth after the spring rains.

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    2. Phil. Being up here a ways from your home state (and never visiting it) I get my travelogue from different sources that we’ve chatted about. Buddy, these guys (a bunch more) McMurtry etc. I also caught a film way back ‘The Thin Blue Line (great doc) that takes place in Dallas. It wont be on any travel brochures.

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