Flatlanders – Tonight I Think I’m Gonna Go Downtown

I first blogged about these guys last year. I keep listening to their music and it’s all very likable. It’s something about this song that I can’t put my finger on that has stuck with me for days. It could be the unique lead vocal or it could be 

Jimmie Dale Gilmore wrote this song with John Reed who was in a band at the time called Frieda and The Firedogs. Gilmore said: “It was inspired by this feeling I had one night having to do with, Well, I just want to go downtown, everybody knows that feeling. I think that’s why that song resonates with people because it kind of conjures an emotion that you can’t quite put your finger on.”

The track is featured on their album All American Music, which was their debut album and a great example of Americana and Texas music. Over the years, the song has been covered by various artists, including Joe Ely in February 1978 and Nanci Griffith in March 1982…Mudhoney also covered it. 

With their All American Music… they issued a few hundred copies on 8-track cassettes. The group broke up the following year but would reform continually. In the 1990s, as Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock gained recognition as individual artists, interest in The Flatlanders’ early work grew so this album saw the light of day.

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 this album 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.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend and I hope you enjoy these songs. 

I’m adding an extra bonus Flatlanders song called Pay The Alligator

I Think I’m Gonna Go Downtown

Tonight I think I’m gonna go downtown.
Tonight I think I’m gonna look around
For something I couldn’t see
When this world was more real to me.
Yeah tonight I think I’m gonna go downtown.

My love, my love has gone away.
My love, my love what can I say.
My love would never see
That this world’s just not real to me
And tonight I think I’m gonna go downtown.

I told my love a thousand times
That I can’t say what’s on my mind,
But she would never see
That this world’s just not real to me
And tonight I think I’m gonna go downtown.

Tonight I think I’m gonna go downtown.
Tonight I think I’m gonna look around
For something I couldn’t see
When this world was more real to me.
Yeah tonight I think I’m gonna go downtown.

…

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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.

40 thoughts on “Flatlanders – Tonight I Think I’m Gonna Go Downtown”

  2. Pingback: Flatlanders – Tonight I Think I’m Gonna Go Downtown – MobsterTiger

  3. Wow, both songs are great. I bought the reissue of their album sometime after it came out. Jimmie Dale’s voice has the sound of ages past in it. I remember hearing a song by Butch Hancock on a folk radio show that sounded very much like Dylan. Don’t remember what the song was, but I wrote down his name when they gave it. Don’t know if I know Nancy Griffith’s version of “Downtown” but she was one of my favorite artists, so I will check it out. “Pay The Alligator” will get you up and boogieing. Very good choices today.

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    1. Thanks so much…it’s like pick your poison…a very talented lineup. I’ve dug a little on all three…it’s a shame they are not more known than they are.

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  4. The name The Flatlanders rings a distant bell. I probably commented on your previous post – it’s called terrible name memory!🤣

    In any case, Americana is a genre I’ve come to dig over the past 6 years or so, and I enjoy both songs you highlighted here.

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    1. Yea you do have bands like The Band that hit and Tom Petty, Springsteen, and the heartland rockers…that was mixed with rock.

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  10. 3 great voices in one band just like The Band. Loves these song and all three of the Flatlanders. I bust this song out and sing a few verses now and then. Wesson’s saw is such a cool sound. Always makes me feel like I’m driving into Cuckoos Nest. I actually know a guy who plays the saw. Impressive. And man is it sharp.

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    1. That saw sound (which I should have said something about) is so haunting…and it could be corny used in the wrong way…but it adds to this one.
      Oh I would love to play the saw…I think I’ve tried a few times…not easy. It sounds like the Twilight Zone.

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    1. Yes I do agree with that…it’s an odd song that caught my attention. It’s something about his vocals that is just different….and of course…the saw!

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  15. 2 great songs.! I could do without the saw, personally.

    I discovered jimmy dale several years back with a little gem that I heard on the radio, called “Little girl, think it over” I think.

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  16. I have been a Joe Ely fan for years and years. But my favorite work of these guys is the absurd, ridiculous and miraculously wonderful Slip and Slide by Butch Hancock. Butch says there are three volumes of the song, I’ve not heard the third. The first is, like I said, absurd, ridiculous, and miraculously wonderful. The second is way too long to be anything but a follow up. Once you have been introduced to the craziness of the first Slip and Slide you hunger for more and there is the second.

    Mind you, I only somewhat recommend Slip and Slide. It is a great piece of work that I have loved for years but you have to love word play. cincinnatibabyhead, if you’re not familiar with it, YOU’D LOVE IT!!

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