Got them pretty road cases
Protect our asses, protect our faces, protect our guitars, protect our amps.
Got them pretty road cases throw them out an airplane and they'll just bounce

Paint our name on them road cases, stencil and white spray paint
"Drive-by Truckers" on every one or maybe just "DBT"
Gonna get ourselves a big tour bus, maybe even an airplane
Fly around the world and back.
Hope it don't run out of gas.

Got them pretty road cases...

Someday we'll hock our road cases, when we don't need them anymore
To pay off that big cocaine dealer (the only thing they're useful for)
One day we'll sell our road cases, when we don't need them anymore
When we outlive our usefulness,
The only thing road cases are useful for.

Got them pretty road cases.

(Hood/DBT)

Have at it.

For myself, i've always liked this one. SRO is an album awash in storytelling, famous people, and the mythos of the South. This song is none of those things. Instead, the microscope focuses in on an implied over-the-hill band (Patterson has mentioned in show banter that the inspiration for this song was all the old ARS - Atlanta Rythmn Section - cases that seemed to be in every music store in the mid-90s).

I've never understood why the road cases say Drive-By Truckers (or maybe just DBT) when the band in the story is Betamax Guillotine

Zip City wrote:I've never understood why the road cases say Drive-By Truckers (or maybe just DBT) when the band in the story is Betamax Guillotine

+1

Great song, though. One of my favorite Patterson songs on SRO.

Zip City wrote:I've never understood why the road cases say Drive-By Truckers (or maybe just DBT) when the band in the story is Betamax Guillotine

I think there are three layers to SRO - since the album is DBT telling the story of the south and Betamax Guillotine. Some bits are clearly, in the Canterbury Tales tradition, framing story. Really it breaks down into 3 categories:

"Framing Story"

Days of Graduation
The Three Great Alabama Icons
Let There Be Rock
Road Cases

"The Saga of the South/Betamax Guillotine"

Birmingham
Ronnie & Neal
The Southern Thing
Wallace
Cassie's Brother
Life In The Factory
Shut Up and Get on the Plane
Angel's and Fuselage

"Betamax Guillotine Songs"

imagine this was a Behind the Music/Rocumentary - Plenty of the "bands" own songs would be useds as interludes and background music

72 (This Highway's Mean)
Dead, Drunk, and Naked
Guitar Man Upstairs
Zip City
Women Without Whiskey
Plastic Flowers on the Highway
Greenville to Baton Rouge

I happen to think that the album works best when you toss out the narrative completely

Zip City wrote:I happen to think that the album works best when you toss out the narrative completely

and remove 5-6 songs

Tyler wrote:

Zip City wrote:I've never understood why the road cases say Drive-By Truckers (or maybe just DBT) when the band in the story is Betamax Guillotine

I think there are three layers to SRO - since the album is DBT telling the story of the south and Betamax Guillotine. Some bits are clearly, in the Canterbury Tales tradition, framing story. Really it breaks down into 3 categories:

"Framing Story"

Days of Graduation
The Three Great Alabama Icons
Let There Be Rock
Road Cases

"The Saga of the South/Betamax Guillotine"

Birmingham
Ronnie & Neal
The Southern Thing
Wallace
Cassie's Brother
Life In The Factory
Shut Up and Get on the Plane
Angel's and Fuselage

"Betamax Guillotine Songs"

imagine this was a Behind the Music/Rocumentary - Plenty of the "bands" own songs would be useds as interludes and background music

72 (This Highway's Mean)
Dead, Drunk, and Naked
Guitar Man Upstairs
Zip City
Women Without Whiskey
Plastic Flowers on the Highway
Greenville to Baton Rouge

Great breakdown Tyler.