Happy 15th Anniversary to Ry Cooder’s fourteenth studio album I, Flathead, originally released June 23, 2008.
Few musicians have had careers as eclectic as Ry Cooder. He’s worked as a session musician, collaborating with many of the greatest artists and bands to ever record. He’s one of the best guitarists walking the planet. He’s an accomplished composer that has scored many films. He’s an ethnomusicologist who helped define the idea of “World Music” as we understand it. He’s a solo artist with a discography as deep and varied as anyone living or dead. I, Flathead, his fourteenth studio album, is as good as anything that he released during his decades-long career.
Released 15 years ago, I, Flathead is the third and final entry in his successful California trilogy. Chavez Ravine (2005) chronicled the lives of Mexican American families in Los Angeles and the destruction of their neighborhoods to make way for Dodger Stadium, while My Name Is Buddy (2007) explored the radicalization of folk music during the days of Woody Guthrie. I, Flathead’s story is more sprawling, as are its musical influences. Since it’s set in the period of his upbringing, Cooder draws from the diverse array of styles and genres that shaped his musical sensibilities. And although much of it is sung from the perspective of a fictional character, it’s one of his most personal albums.
Cooder conceived I, Flathead as a collection of songs by the band Kash Buk & The Klowns. Cooder slips into the role of the gravelly-voiced, decent but not quite good singer, both singing and speaking fluently in the vernacular of hot rod racers. These “flatheads” would spend the post-WWII years speeding their rides across dried-out lakes, salt flats, and other vast expanses in areas to the north of Los Angeles and to the east of Bakersfield, in areas like the Searles Valley. Cooder portrays Buk as a guy who is obsessed with racing cars, driving Cadillacs, playing the steel guitar, and listening to country music. Buk is vaguely past his prime as both a singer and driver, but still clings to hopes of making it big.
Cooder established a few things with the California trilogy: 1. He could completely commit to the bit and 2. He could be serious about “world-building.” With I, Flathead, Cooder does both in abundance. Deluxe copies of the album included a nearly 100-page bound hardcover book that outlines Kash Buk’s back story and features transcripts of “interviews” from an eclectic cast of characters, including a space alien named Shakey.
One of I, Flathead’s best assets is its humor, which offsets its occasionally grim subtext. Cooder has long blended his slightly off-kilter sense of humor seamlessly into his albums, especially when dealing with serious subject matter. I, Flathead may seem to be a less heavy endeavor than a project like Chavez Ravine, but underneath tongue-in-cheek songs about trying to get laid and scraping together money to repair a Cadillac, the album confronts concepts like abandonment, mortality, and the pursuit of happiness.
“Drive Like I’ve Never Been Hurt” sets the album’s tone from the outset. The song has been described as “Bruce Springsteen meets a Mariachi Band,” which is apt. Cooder creates a sonically epic undertaking, backed by his son, Joachim, on drums and Mariachi Los Camperos providing towering horns. Cooder plays Kash Buk to the hilt, belting out his tale of woe as a dragracer, scorned by love, resigned to keep speeding across the salt flats, “’cause I’m a good man when the flag goes down.” He seems equally miffed by the rejection by his former love as he is by her insults that he stunk as a driver and his car “weren’t no good.”
Listen to the Album:
Though Cooder draws from many eclectic musical styles throughout I, Flathead, much of the release celebrates country music. “Waiting For Some Girl” is a straightforward country western jam, as he attempts to mend his heartbreak by finding a new source of affection. “Pink O Boogie” is a rollicking Rock-A-Billy number, evoking both honky-tonks and 1950s dancehalls. Still, Cooder adds some over-the-top political commentary to the affairs, evoking images of J. Edgar Hoover getting down to the grooves.
I, Flathead isn’t all from the perspective of Buk, as “Johnny Cash” serves as Cooder’s origin story. Cooder has frequently spoken about Cash’s importance to his musical awakening while growing up in Santa Monica. The song is a love letter to the power of Cash’s music, as he recalls listening to him for hours “on my Sears and Roebuck radio, Pasadena KXLA,” wishing that he could be part of the band. During the late 2010s, Cooder would tour extensively with Rosanne Cash, with the pair exclusively performing songs from the elder Cash’s catalogue.
Cooder slides back into the Buk persona with “Can I Smoke In Here?” narrating his attempts to negotiate a late-night hook-up. Backed by guitar and various types of percussion, the song sounds every bit the soundtrack to the slightly shady, nearly abandoned dive bar where it’s set. Later, Cooder leans into the country/jazz of the 1950s, crooning songs like “Steel Guitar Heaven” and “Spayed Kooley.” On the former, Cooder/Buk shows his reverence for the venerable and often deceased practitioners of the Hawaiian guitar style, noting that “the good Lord knows that the steel player's life on Earth isn't often easy. So he's set aside a little corner of Heaven, custom made, just for you.”
“Riding With the Blues” is a bawdy blues rock jam where Cooder revels in Buk’s questionable proclivities, He extols the virtue of hanging out at the local high school, hoping to solicit the attention of the cheerleaders, plying them with alcohol and encouraging them to “pull up your dress and kick off your shoes.” I imagine it’s not a coincidence that the song sounds like something the Rolling Stones would have recorded over half a century ago, since Cooder once worked as a session musician for the band while they recorded Let It Bleed (1969).
I, Flathead also features exhibitions into different forms of Mexican music which were popular in post-War Southern California. “Fernando Sez” is full-fledged Banda cut, complete with bass saxophone, trumpet, and trombone. Cooder also mines the humor of the situation, as Buk unsuccessfully negotiates with the titular mechanic about making repairs and adding enhancements to his Cadillac, even as he’s buried in debt. In an extended outro/argument, Kash begs for deals on glass-pack mufflers and a Double Hollywood Exhaust, as an unmoved Fernando balks, berating him in Spanglish.
Cooder delves into Norteno music with “Filipino Dancehall Girl,” opting to play the lute while backed by famed Tejano artist Flaco Jimenez on accordion. The song is subtly poignant, as Cooder dreams of surreptitious rendezvouses with the girl who he envisions in his sleep. But overall, the song concerns finding hope in a dour and unforgiving world.
I, Flathead’s last third is its most interesting, as Cooder grapples with the realities of change and the inevitability of death. On the laid-back “Dwarf Is Getting Tired,” Cooder sings from the perspective of a musician (possibly Buk) living in a double-wide mobile home in Anaheim, retired from the music business after years of performing “from Spokane clear down to Bakersfield.” He tries to adjust to his new life, leaving years of “motel rooms, cigarettes, and magazines” in favor of watching hot dog eating contests and attending county fairs. Cooder plays the song for some dark humor, as he memorializes a friend who met his end while portraying Mickey Mouse at the then recently opened Disneyland. Cooder manages to be both ridiculous and profound as he sings, “He died inside his rubber suit out on the street of dreams / It was a hot July Sunday, he was working overtime / People like seeing Mickey walk by down in Anaheim.”
“Flathead One More Time” flashes forward even further, serving as Kash’s final elegy, as he sits alone in his bed, haunted by visions of the racing buddies that he’s lost “out on the dry lake floor,” as a lone guitar and muted horns play in the background. Cooder does an excellent job channeling the pain and resignation of someone who’s seen their vitality slip away, still craving one last shot at glory.
“5000 Country Music Songs” is not as drenched in regret, but rather is a bittersweet ballad. Cooder assumes the role of an aspiring musician who spends years sending country songs, unsolicited, to Memphis-based record labels. The recording is a brilliant documentation of finding happiness even after you realize that you aren’t going to achieve the dreams of your youth.
The album ends with “Little Trona Girl,” as sung by Juliette Commagere, wife of the aforementioned Joachim Cooder. Even though the lyrics are simple, the forlorn lullaby conveys great sadness, with Buk haunted by visions of his deceased love that calls to him through the rearview mirror of his speeding car.
Cooder has recorded and released music sporadically since the late ’00s, releasing some quite good music. However, nothing has been as ambitious and rich as the California trilogy overall and I, Flathead specifically. He balanced the absurdity and tragedy that life can present to you in a way few others have, and did so while immersing himself in cultures unknown to many. Not many would think to seek enlightenment in the realm of salt flat racing, but Cooder went those extra miles, and it paid off.
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