Well, my daddy didn't pull out, but he never apologized
Rock and Roll means well, but it can't help tellin' young boys lies
A baby on the way's a good enough reason to get you out alive
get you out without having to swallow any pride

All my friends are restless, all they do is talk it down,
two or eight lanes, it don't matter, it's just another town
There's a fool on every corner, on every street, in every one
and I'd rather be your fool nowhere than go somewhere and be no one's

So Marry Me, sweet thing won't you Marry Me
Your mama thinks I beat anything she's ever seen
This old town's alright with me, there's nowhere I'd rather be
Long as they stay mad at one another, they can't get mad at me

Every time I leave here something bad happens to me
Like a busted hand or finding some man laying where I sleep
She don't mean nothing to me, that's just how it goes round here
It's a cartoon town, I play my part, and I ain't spoke her name in years

So Marry Me......

I don't want anything I done to be nobody's fault
even if they got more money and mouth than they got balls
That's just how it went down, right or wrong, it's just that way
Just cause I don't run my mouth don't mean I got nothing to say....

Marry Me....



The live version of this song that's on the ABAAC bonus disc is what really made me realize that this band was absolutely the real deal. People have said that the song sounds like Already Gone, by The Eagles, and I suppose to some extent they are correct in saying that. But to me however, It sounds like something that wouldn't have sounded out of place on Exile On Main Street. It's easy for me to imagine Jagger belting out these lyrics in his early 70's heydey.

There are several lines in this song that any songwriter would be proud to have managed to include even one of in any of their songs. I want to focus my attention on the most obvious choice, the line that Craig Finn, of The Hold Steady, refers to as one of the eternal truths of Rock n Roll.

Rock and Roll means well, but it can't help tellin' young boys lies


I will go Mr. Finn one better and say that that line is one of life's eternal truths. It sure has been for me. When I look back on it, I can certainly say it's been a prevailing theme in my own life.

I've been a Rock n Roll junky since well before puberty. I worship at the altar of the church of Rock N Roll. Hearing a new disc by one of my favorite bands is my own personal version of taking communion. This kind of thinking has led me down a wrong path or two whall pursuing the rock n roll lifestyle. I didn't finish college because I was always on the road seeing The Dead. I've always had to have a job with enough flexibility that I could take time off for shows. You could say that perhaps my priorities may at times have been a bit out of whack. As I aproached middle age this started to bother me more and more. I got married and had two beautiful children, and I wondered If perhaps I had done them a disservice by not getting a better education and having a better job. These feelings peaked at about the same time I started Listening to DBT. My kid's were 3 and 4 at the time and I just felt like I had made a grave tactical error.
Those feelings eventually started to pass. I realized that what Robert Plant had sung, about rivers always reaching the sea, was absolutely correct.

I was married to a wonderful woman, I had two great kid's, and I still had Rock N Roll. That line, from that song, by a guy from Tuscumbia, Alabama helped put it all in it's proper perspective for me. Whatever roads I had traveled upon had led to me to where I was, and I was enjoying the view. I still am. I'm very happy to still have something besides my family that means as much to me as Rock n Roll still does to this very day.

Pick any line: This song is just chock full o' eternal truths.

Great song, great write up.

This verse strikes me as being very near the center of what fans react to when they "fall" for DBT:

I don't want anything I done to be nobody's fault
even if they got more money and mouth than they got balls
That's just how it went down, right or wrong, it's just that way
Just cause I don't run my mouth don't mean I got nothing to say....

Not necessarily the greatest or best or most artistic or pithiest or whatever, but a verse that I imagine every DBT fan personally relates to in some way. Yes, even those of us who run our mouths plenty.

But didn't we do this one already? I kinda sorta remember an in depth analysis of the first verse somewhere along the line.

I swear we did this song once before.....

What I like about this song is that it is from the point of view of the guy who leaves the band for family life. There are good reasons to stop chasing the dream. This guy seems to know himself and, despite the great times he has with his band, deep down knows that it will kill him in the end. He is better off getting married and staying in some small town.

Whenever I hear the band play this song live, I can't help but belt it out at the top of my lungs. That is, unless my girlfriend is with me, then I suddenly forget the chorus. Weird.

Nicely put sactochris. Always love the perspectives on this board.


Took me a while to appreciate this song. Wasn't a very big fan of the song at first, until I caught myself singing along to 'just because I don't run my mouth don't mean I got nothing to say" a few months after DD was released. It's chock full of one liners that ultimately are damn accurate.

Without a doubt one of my top three favorite Truckers songs! But I just had to give mention to the fact that, while everyone always lists "Already Gone" as the song that may have been floating around in Cooley's head when came up with the riff, "Romeo had Juliette" by Lou Reed sounds almost exactly like "Marry Me." With the only difference being that "Marry Me" is played at a slightly faster tempo. Plus, if I have to accept that a Cooley classic was ripped from someone, I'd much rather it be Lou Reed than the Eagles.

Zip City wrote:I swear we did this song once before.....

nope (believe it or not, there is a master list)
btw - if anyone wants to do a track of the week thread, just shoot me a pm

The very first DBT song that caught me. StevieRay gave me a copy of DD and Marry Me just clicked even though the rest didn't at first. My first thought was that it sounded like it could have been a lost track of Exile on Main Street (great minds and all that sacto...) and that wasn't a bad thing at all. I often think if it wasn't for this one I may have shelved DBT for years and who knows, I may never have caught the bug. Great song.

Just cause I don't run my mouth don't mean I got nothin' to say!!!!! is always one of the greatest moments of the rock show experience.

This is the song that set the hook...

Great commentary, Sactochris.

Clams wrote:

Zip City wrote:I swear we did this song once before.....

nope (believe it or not, there is a master list)
btw - if anyone wants to do a track of the week thread, just shoot me a pm

might not have been a Track of the Week, but I remember an extended conversation in some thread about this song

Tequila Cowboy wrote:The very first DBT song that caught me. StevieRay gave me a copy of DD and Marry Me just clicked even though the rest didn't at first. My first thought was that it sounded like it could have been a lost track of Exile on Main Street (great minds and all that sacto...) and that wasn't a bad thing at all. I often think if it wasn't for this one I may have shelved DBT for years and who knows, I may never have caught the bug. Great song.

Doesn't this throw your whole (pun recognized) "album" theory out the window?

Decoration Day was the first DBT album I heard, and Marry Me was the first song that really grabbed me. For about two solid years DD was all I listened to in my car (where I do most of my "serious" listening), and I must have hit repeat on this track hundreds of times. That little "dernt dernt, dernt dernt" thing at the beginning will be burned into my memory forever.

I never noticed the similarities to the Eagles song before. I guess the old saying is right: talent borrows, genius steals.

Also, Marry Me --> Love Like This --> Get Downtown. Same couple?

I think I remember a Cooley interview, maybe around the time of The Big To Do, where he said that the song was about a guy who screamed out the wrong girl's name (Mary!) during sex and had no choice but to change it to Marry Me! to avoid trouble with the one he was actually with (or something like that). Hopefully I didn't dream that up (I bet Smitty has a link to the interview).

After having seen Secret to a Happy Ending, I wonder if this was about Chris? Since he was supposed to be in the band, and died right before they got it going.


Anyhow, back to the song.

This was the song that drove it through my head that was the best band on the face of the planet. I had already fallen for ABAAC and TDS the week before. I'd had DD on my ipod for a few days, but was still infatuated with the other 2 albums. I was out mowing water ways on a hot June day, and decided to check out DD. The first 3 songs were pretty awesome. Then I got hit by this chugging riff, with a layer of filthy slide over top of it. Then the first line of the song. The next 5 minutes were incredible.

I hit the repeat button 7 times before deciding to finish the rest of that album.

Iowan wrote:After having seen Secret to a Happy Ending, I wonder if this was about Chris? Since he was supposed to be in the band, and died right before they got it going.

It is; there definitely was another thread that discussed this song, must not'v ebeen a TOTW

it was mentioned here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=946&p=35827&hilit=chris+quillen#p35831

"Just cause I don't run my mouth, don't mean I got nothing to say," reminds me of Skynyrd's Aint No Good Life, and in particular, "Well just because I don't pray, lord that don't mean I ain't forgiven, Just because I'm alive, that don't mean I'm making a living." It's something with the cadence and how the first part of the lyric sets up the next.

I also have to throw some love to the bridge section following Cooley's "let's go." Nasty.

Sterling Big Mouth wrote:I also have to throw some love to the bridge section following Cooley's "let's go." Nasty.

Even though the lyrics are stupendous, this is my favorite part too.

Slipkid42 wrote:

Sterling Big Mouth wrote:I also have to throw some love to the bridge section following Cooley's "let's go." Nasty.

Even though the lyrics are stupendous, this is my favorite part too.

x3 just alsum

I find it funny that so many of our stories are the same. I was given DD from a friend when it came out. Marry Me was the first song that hooked me as well. I played it for all my friends. We all thought it sounded just like old Stones. I ran out and got GB and PD and that was all I listened to for a real long time. Added SRO and went to see them when TDS came out. I'm still here enjoying this journey. All because of this tune.

Marry Me: Gateway drug. Parents, you've been warned.

IMNSHO, "I'd rather be your fool nowhere than go somewhere and be no one's" is the most romantic line in a RnR song since "Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold but with you forever I'll stay."

I once read a review that described this song as a "rock and roll missile". That's a damn near perfect description.

I'm in the camp that thought of it more as a Stones-esque tune than Already Gone. But it just has a little more "blister" than most Stones tunes. Just punches back a little bit harder.

Iowan wrote:I once read a review that described this song as a "rock and roll missile". That's a damn near perfect description.

I'm in the camp that thought of it more as a Stones-esque tune than Already Gone. But it just has a little more "blister" than most Stones tunes. Just punches back a little bit harder.

That's just not a very fair statement.... "Marry Me" has a little more "blister" than most Trucker's songs as well, so does "Jumping Jack Flash," "Street Fighting Man," and "Rocks Off." It's just not fair to take one of the Trucker's most rockin' songs and hold it up against any band's entire catalogue, even the Stones.

The only resemblance to "Already Gone" is the riff is similar, and I don't see anyone could deny that. I agree it's kinda "Stonesy", a lot of Cooley's rockers are that way to me - his voice is even slightly similar to Jagger's - but the songs are still distinctly DBT.

Fool No Where wrote:IMNSHO, "I'd rather be your fool nowhere than go somewhere and be no one's" is the most romantic line in a RnR song since "Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold but with you forever I'll stay."

And then came "Mercy Buckets".

Carry your secrets to my grave..

Patterson's "Love Like This". Immediately added to my all-time favorite love songs.

But that's another thread. Or two.

Smitty wrote:The only resemblance to "Already Gone" is the riff is similar, and I don't see anyone could deny that. I agree it's kinda "Stonesy", a lot of Cooley's rockers are that way to me - his voice is even slightly similar to Jagger's - but the songs are still distinctly DBT.

Regarding his voice - I definitely hear a little Jagger in the first part of 3DD. 'It was a straight shot...."