Michael Dean Damron
A Perfect Day for a Funeral
In Music We Trust
A Perfect Day for a Funeral, the debut solo album from Michael Dean Damron, the lead singer of I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House, is a little bit of a whole lot of issues all wrapped around an alt-country sound that is a lot like a younger Steve Earle or a more biting Ryan Adams.
The album offers a little political commentary on the upbeat track “Spit,” which is about Damron’s friend Lin “Spit” Newborn who was the first social activist killed on U.S. soil in thirty years. Damron’s lyrics – such as “God bless America/God damn America” and “The devil’s laughing on the Fourth of July” – show just how much bitterness he still has toward those who killed Spit, and toward America as a whole.
The title track is a middle finger to his ex-wife. The lyrics here are not only filled with hatred (“I hate you/I really do”), but there is an intense, heart-on-my-sleeve introspection that Damron’s gravely vocals punctuate perfectly. When he sings the lines “All my thoughts now turn to murder” or “I wish that you were dead/No, really/I feel much better” or “I’m glad that that thing died/That I put inside of you/ It would have grown up to hate me,” all I can think is that I hope this is his way of working out the issues he has with her.
A Perfect Day for a Funeral is filled with blues riffs, slide guitars, harmonicas and cryptic lyrics that intertwine with each other to make a beautifully disturbing debut. Damron’s debut is an absolute must-have for anyone who remotely enjoys alt-country, or anyone who likes thoughtful and intensely personal lyrics.
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