Like many here, I grew up listening to bands like Sabbath, Skynryd, Zep, AC/DC, etc. and so forth. The chord changes and lyrics are probably recorded somewhere on one of my genomes. Then all the radios went to the "classic rock" format which, through endless repetition, killed so many of my favorite bands for me. I stumbled through the 90s and early 00s listening to hodgepodge of music ranging from Mudhoney to Paula Cole but none of it really felt like home.

Until I found the craziest looking CD in a borders with the unusual title "Decoration Day". There was a sticker on it that said it was one of Rolling Stone magazine's best albums of the year so I dropped the better part of a $20 and I've never been the same since.

Never a big fan of "country" (with a few exceptions), I'd never really listened to much pedal steel guitar. So when I heard Patterson start on his tragic tale of separation, love and it's consequences...and that steel kicked in, it was like I'd been transported to a place I'd never been, but always belonged to.

Dark, tragic, redemption, rebellion and loss. DBT are the masters of these themes and The Deeper In is a prime example. The imagery of a broken home, a girl growing up abandoned, the subliminal attraction - blood on blood, the back seat of a motorcycle and path to escaping the pain of loneliness, damn all who don't understand. Well, that's powerful and for me, it set the stage for a deep and abiding love DBT's unique mythology. I've been a loud, proud fan ever since. Thanks to a song that, on the surface is about incest, but underneath is really about love and holding onto it despite what others think.

By the time you were born there were four other siblings
with your Mama awaiting your Daddy in jail
Your oldest brother was away at a home
and you didn't meet him til you were nineteen years old
Old enough to know better, old enough to know better
but you took to his jaw line and long sandy hair
How he made you feel like none of the others
and the way he looked at you touched you deep down in there.

So you jumped on his bike and rode into the sunset
but the sequel it started with the next morning sun
and the dew on the bike seat and you all a glow
from the love he put in you and a life on the run.

Now, the District Attorney said He might of forgiven
You had lots of reasons to turn out this way
But you'll both go to jail for them four little babies
you made and delivered along the way

Last night you had a dream of a Lord so forgiving
He might show compassion for a heathen He damned
You awoke in a jail cell, alone and so lonely
Seven years in Michigan

This is a great song...one that did not have my immediate affections but now inevitably one I end up singing in the shower or when i'm in Kroger buying groceries, just to freak out the people the next isle over... You know I never really got the title though until just a couple of weeks ago when we had some friends over and somehow the topic of incestuous relationships came up and someone stated, "The closer the kin, the deeper in." and it was like a lightbulb. I had never heard that phrase.

opening track from their follow up to a critical breakthru. lots of suits looking at this album.....maybe even a few fans.

fuck it.......a cappella patterson singing about incest.

mad props for the statement/coincidence and the amazingly, brilliant song.



just my opinion.

One of Patterson's best. Paints a vivid picture.

Love that the last line doesn't rhyme (though he changed the state to Michigan because it fit the meter better than Wisconsin, which is where the story actually happened)

Got to hear this one in Louisville last month, always a treat to catch it live

GuitarManUpstairs wrote:This is a great song...one that did not have my immediate affections but now inevitably one I end up singing in the shower or when i'm in Kroger buying groceries, just to freak out the people the next isle over... You know I never really got the title though until just a couple of weeks ago when we had some friends over and somehow the topic of incestuous relationships came up and someone stated, "The closer the kin, the deeper in." and it was like a lightbulb. I had never heard that phrase.

Never heard the phrase before either, until tonight. Singing it in the shower though, I don't know...

This is one song that takes some time before you get it, but it really is classic Patterson - turning something despicable into something you can almost relate to. I love that last hanging chord after he sings "Seven years in Michigan."

wow, yall never heard the closer kin, the deeper in? Ya'll need to spend some more time down south..

Singing it in the shower though, I don't know...

Singing it in the shower...OK

Singing it in the shower with your sister...not OK...

I'd have to go back and listen to the recording to get it word-for-word, but in Mobile, after playing TDI, Patterson quipped something like, "Wow, nothing like a song about sister-fuckin' to get the crowd goin' ".

Fantastic write-up Scratch!

I seem to hazily remember (because most of my live DBT memories are whiskey-hazed) that at the Brooklyn Dirt Underneath show there were a few people who were requesting this toward the end of the night and Patterson jokingly said something to the effect that Brooklyn folk are sick fu**s.... But I do think they then played it. Such a killer tune.

I really don't know what to say. DD was the first album introduced to me. This song painted a picture I hadn't seen and a mood I hadn't felt in some time. Hook-line-sinker.

.............not the sister fuckin'...........i'm an only child.

pearlysnaps wrote:Fantastic write-up Scratch!

I seem to hazily remember (because most of my live DBT memories are whiskey-hazed) that at the Brooklyn Dirt Underneath show there were a few people who were requesting this toward the end of the night and Patterson jokingly said something to the effect that Brooklyn folk are sick fu**s.... But I do think they then played it. Such a killer tune.

I remember it well. I was so happy to hear that song live.

Erdlivz wrote:.............not the sister fuckin'...........i'm an only child.

What about cousins?

Patterson Hood is a multi-dimensional songwriter. One facet of his art is his willingness to tackle sexual taboos. "Bulldozers and Dirt" deals with a thirty-something man on the verge of crossing the line with the fifteen year old daughter of his live-in girlfriend. "Margo and Harold" is the story of middle age swingers. And a person will never look at Santa and his reindeer the same way after listening to "Mrs. Claus' Kimono." Patterson avoids moralizing when he approaches these stories. He presents the characters on their own terms and allows the stories unfold on their own. By withholding judgement, the songs are presented in such a way that the listener gains a different understanding of these situations. While not condoning such behavior, the listener can see for him or herself how such things happen.

"The Deeper In" is probably Patterson Hood's best song dealing with so-called sexual taboos and deviencies. He confronts the ultimate sexual taboo -- incest -- head on and pulls no punches. Unlike most cases of incest where one or both participants are below the age of consent, "The Deeper In" presents a tale of adult onset, consensual incest between a brother and sister. It is supposedly a story of an actual case that occurred in the upper mid-west. Both the brother and the sister were tried, convicted and jailed for their crimes.

The first decision Patterson Hood makes is to tell the story from the second person point of view. This is a brilliant move in that it allows the listener to simultaneously experience the story from the perspective of the sister and the society that is passing its judgement. This allows the listener to be defendant, prosecutor, judge and jury simultaneously. It also sets the stage for the final verse where it is apparent that none of these perspectives is adequate to pass judgement which, in such a complex and abhorrent situation, is reserved for God alone.

In the first verse we are shown the situation, from the dysfunctional and impoverished circumstances into which the woman was born to the uncontrollable attraction she has towards her oldest brother, someone she did not meet until she was a grown woman. Behavioral scientists call this genetic sexual attraction, a phenomen that sometimes occurs when first degree relatives who were separated shortly after birth and raised apart from one another are reunited later in life. In some cases -- certainly not always -- a brother and sister, or a parent and child will experience an overwhelming sexual attraction towards one another. Studies of genetically unrelated children who were raised in close proximaty such as on a kibbutz have shown that marriages and sexual relationships between such persons are extremely rare even though a relationship would not consititute incest. This has led behavioral scientists to postulate that the abhorrence we have towards the idea of a sexual relationship with a first degree relative is not biological in origin but anthropological and sociological. Growing up together in the same household is what gives most of us the willies at the idea of kissing our brother or sister, not some biological mechanism that repels us from those who share similar DNA. Patterson Hood shows this phenomenon in the first verse without explaining it.

In verse two the brother and sister deal with the consequences of the situation they are in, choosing a life on the run and moving from one small town to another in order to keep a step or two ahead of the suspicions of their neighbors. The incestuous relationship produces four children. The couple swears that they would not allow their children to be taken from their homes.

Eventually this is what causes everything to come crashing down. They are prosecuted for their crimes -- not because they are sleeping in the same bed but because they are having children. This puts their actions beyond the pale. Their crime is against God and nature. Most people, no matter how tolerant and understanding, will consider two siblings knowingly creating children as a result of a sexual relationship repulsive.

The final verse is where Patterson Hood demonstrates once and for all why he is one of the premier songwriters and storytellers in the whole world. We can feel the woman's loneliness and anguish as she serves out her sentence. She has been judged for what is essentially a crime against humanity. "Last night you had a dream of a Lord so forgiving that he might show compassion for a heathen he damned." With this single line Hood turns the story on its head. As human beings there is no way we can condone or forgive such actions. Yes, there is such a thing as justifiable homicide but justifiable incest? It goes against the mores of every single human society on the face of the earth. Patterson allows us to experience the story from the multiple perspectives of defendent, prosecutor, judge and jury. But are any of these positions adequate to pass judgement? Or is that left only to God? And is this woman worthy of compassion? Even if we cannot forgive her, is God capable and willing to? And this possibility raises a whole lot of other questions. If the crime was the children who were brought into this world deliberately, are they worth any less as human being being because they are the result of an incestuous union? And are they better off now that they are in the foster care system than they were in their parents' home?

In the end this story does not give us any tidy morals or solutions. It only raises difficult questions regarding the ultimate taboo. Patterson Hood showed tremendous guts in tackling such a song. But with the result this good he also shows the world why he makes 99% of the other songwriters in music look like complete hacks.

Nicely done Rev.

Smitty wrote:wow, yall never heard the closer kin, the deeper in? Ya'll need to spend some more time down south..

I've bee here all my life...somehow this phrase escaped me. But I do have an uncle from Georgia who later in life married his first cousin from Alabama...I guess they were't hav'in kids so they figured why not. I suppose since there was one party from each state someone from Mississipi will have to crack the joke on 'em. Anyway, they've been married for like 20 years now and they're happy, so I say more power to them.

Just a side note since my aunt/cousin was brought up....She was from Birmingham and married her first husband when she was like 17. He was a guitarist and in a band called Smith Perkins and Smith, which by coicidence put out an album produced by David Hood and which somewhere (I believe on his solo webpage) Patterson cites as one of his favorite records growing up. Apparently he drew inspiration from one of their songs and incorporated the sound into The Range War on Murdering Oscar(AOLS).

Holy shit Rev, you are the man.

Bravo Rev! Great analysis of an even greater song.

Gotta add to the choir of praise here - great job, Rev.

First album: Decoration Day. Check.

First cut: The Deeper In. Check.

SAY WHAT????!!!!

With you all the way, Scratch. Nailed it.

You too, Rev.

I associate this song with cementing my love for this band. Perfect opener to the perfect DBT record.

<<Patterson Hood is a multi-dimensional song writer.>>

I am going to hear that sentence echoing forever before every Hood song now. Rev, you are a bit of a multi-dimensional
writer yourself. Respect.

I imagine that, unless you have experienced genetic sexual attraction yourself, this is going to sound entirely unbelievable. But trust me: it is as real and intense as anything. I believe her. It's a tough read.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/0 ... /23353532/

Bryan just sent me this...

I have a friend I nick named DI but he thought she was only his cousin and didn't know his daddy, the preacher, had done the sisters.