That One Happy Jason Isbell Song

Hi. I’m Ryan. I’ve written about sports in a bunch of places and books about Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Buffett. Now I’m writing this. It’s a newsletter about sports, music, travel and other things we enjoy. It’s called Portfolio of Enthusiasms. It’s free, but we’d love it if you subscribed. Welcome to Issue No. 3.

Before we had a mortgage or a kid, before our parents needed us the way we once needed them, before we were married, my wife and I had a day. One of my favorite days. A brilliant, perfect day. The kind of day you hold tight and return to when the other days fall apart.

On a humid and breezy Hawaiian day on Kauai, we drove to the top of Waimea Canyon, stood stunned by the view and how many different greens can rise toward the sky. We saw some plants that looked like they’d been pulled from a Dr. Seuss book, and then we started down a trail. And down. And down. It was hot and dirty work. Not far from the jungle line, we ran into some hikers on the way back up. They were scratched up and scratching. “It’s pretty tough pushing to the bottom,” they said. “And not really worth it.” We took a water break before marching up and up and up until we were back at the car. 

We wound our way back down to the ocean, parked at an empty beach and jumped in the water. Next, we found a little beach bar where we got burgers and beer before going back to the hotel and falling asleep at, like, 6:30 p.m. It was the best.

We had time back then — and very little pressing against it. Nothing could reshape that time into anything but what we wanted it to be.

The New York Times tackled happiness in the Sunday mag a few weeks ago. There were tips and tricks and a reporter dispatched to Finland, eight-time defending champion of the World Happiness Report. Critic Molly Young jumped in frigid water, drank small cups of coffee, sat in saunas alongside locals and spent an afternoon in Helsinki’s main public library, “which looks like a ship made of carrot cake,” she wrote. It was warm and welcoming and centered on community.

The Nordic countries do well in the World Happiness Report because, Young writes, while the title says “happiness,” it really means “contentment.” It’s a difficult concept to chart but a strong social safety net and the idea that your neighbors are looking out for you (while you look out for them) will put some numbers on the scoreboard. The problem with “contentment” is you can’t buy a ticket to it. It’s not a museum or a restaurant or a theme park. It’s locals only. Travel is good for a lot of things, but mostly it’s a diversion. As Joe Romano famously said, “If you’re sad now, you might still feel sad there, Ok.” 

But what about us? The United States peaked at No. 11 in the World Happiness Report in 2012, the kind of solid-not-spectacular season that puts a team on the College Football Playoff bubble. These days, we’re barely in the Top 25, landing at No. 24 last year. That was before the billionaires really got a grip on our ankles, turned us upside down and started shaking the loose change from our pockets. 

But also, we’re probably just not wired for the study’s particular brand of feel-good. Young: “If Americans are exceptional in our approach to happiness, it may have to do with an insistence on treating the matter as a glittering mystery, a thing requiring pilgrimage or a course at Harvard or Yale (both schools have offered happiness classes) to understand. It’s a quandary we’re tasked with solving — as with many quandaries in this country, like taxes and health insurance and self-defense — on our own. In a land of maximal freedom, where the coffee cups are huge, we can just as easily imagine ourselves becoming billionaires or dying on a street corner.”

You could argue a lot of our problems begin with the fact that too many of us think we actually could become billionaires and not nearly enough of us understand how close we are to the street corner. Problem is, if you start to think about that, it might be all you think about.

Robert’s Western World has slogans. “Nashville’s Undisputed Home of Traditional Country Music” is on the Insta, right above, “Where the music is old and the beer is ice cold.” On the site, you’ll find one declaration, “We Ain’t Changin’,” and one celebration, “The Only Original Honky Tonk in Nashville, TN.” Though maybe those are fightin’ words.

It’s a cool place. Old wood. Old stains. Old neon. A lot of ghosts. “Go to Robert’s,” Will Kimbrough told me in 2015 when I was in Nashville working on Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way. “Try to see Don Kelley.” (Pretty sure it was Will; it’s been an eventful decade.) 

I ducked into the bar on a quiet afternoon to get out of the summer heat. Don Kelley wasn’t playing, but the bartender did jump at a chance to jump on stage. He took a lovely pass at Jason Isbell’s “24 Frames,” from what was then the recently released Something More Than Free. Then he hopped off the stage and went back to pouring drinks.

That decade later, Isbell is singing about Robert’s himself. Foxes in the Snow was released in March and recorded over five days last October at Electric Lady Studios in New York. It is as solo as a solo record can be. He brought one guitar, a 1940 Martin 0-17, and a collection of songs best described as direct.

Will Welch, Isbell’s pal and GQ’s global editorial director, was there to make the short film, Feel Real Good. “I’ve got the solo tour booked,” Isbell says to Gena Johnson, his co-producer on the record. “I just want to walk up and play, because it’s the scariest version of the job… If I’m able to, I need to take every fucking wall down and just go fucking terrify myself.”

He needed to reckon with the end of his marriage, the start of a new relationship and the sadness, regret, anger, excitement and mystery held therein. The walls he tore down were allegory and metaphor and any other literary tool. He didn’t sketch a character to hide himself in and there isn’t any subtext to consider. “I’m sorry the love songs all mean different things today,” he sings in “Gravelweed.” “Why y’all examinin’ me like I’m a murder suspect,” goes “True Believer.”

It’s a good record, great in places and rough in others. He knows that. Riding with Welch through New York he admits there are rough spots he’d have driven himself crazy trying to polish once upon a time. Maybe it’s best considered an unpolished record of an unpolished moment. Maybe it’s a period on a sentence that began in 2013 with Southeastern. “Bury me in the last few lines of an obituary for these trying times,” says the album-opening “Bury Me.” A lot of ups, some downs and a few really good days.

“Ride to Robert’s” carries the promise of one of those days when time is on your side. When everything’s fresh and green and you have nothing to do but pull up in a favorite hangout — “before the room gets packed” — and be amused by the bachelorette parties carrying on out on Broadway. Isbell’s playing conjures a drive in the country with the windows down. His voice carries a hint of contentment. “Everything’s good these days,” he sings, and it sounds a lot like the kind of day you’d hold on to if you could.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit are on tour now.

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