Americana and country music aren’t know for providing the world with the the lightest subjects in the music universe (Roger Miller and Todd Snider excluded). The Late Show With Stephen Colbert has underlined this truth by creating this fantastic infomercial with “alt.country troubadour” Jason Isbell, you know, from “music.”
Its a send up of common roots topes of “break-ups, addiction, fatal diseases” as Isbell, who’s currently experiencing one of the happiest periods of his like with career success, a happy marriage and a new baby, pitches “The Saddest Song Ever†— a list song of country clichés like “unemployment, the troops, reliable trucks done gone breakin’ down” and more tears-in-your-beer favorites.
But wait! That’s not all! “My new 180-minute, four-chord song also covers new cartoonishly tragic down-home scenarios that my fellow singer-songwriters are much too cowardly to tackle. Covering universal topics like “ailing family dogs†to “dying family dogs†to “a tragic cannon accident” to “Frankenstein attacks a preschool.†It gets worse as as Isbell informs us that the song is “available on triple-cassette and Tidal, the two saddest music formats known to mankind.â€
The skit was most likely filmed when Isbell was the musical guest on the show a few weeks back.
Check out the clip below and have a laugh. And for any Music City A&R people that wonder by, yes this song is a joke and not a Blake Shelton pitch.