As a part of my ongoing DBT kick, I want to talk about one of Cooley's best songs. This one's called "Zip City." Below are the lyrics with my commentary. My comments are in brackets:

Your Daddy was mad as hell
He was mad at me and you
As he tied that chain to the front of my car and pulled me out of that ditch that we slid into
Don't know what his problem is
Why he keeps dragging you away
Don't know why I put up with this shit
When you don't put out and Zip City's so far away

[This is a perfect job of capturing the character's voice. This is just what a horny 17 year old would say about his girlfriend's dad. "Don't know what his problem is. . . Don't know why I put with this shit." Great stuff. This kid is kind of a punk, but he's funny. And the parallel between "dragging you away" and pulling the car out of the ditch is great, as is the detail of the car BEING in a ditch. If you grew up in the rural South, you know what that's all about. There are at least two other DBT songs that describe cars in ditches.]

Your Daddy is a deacon down at the Salem Church of Christ
And He makes good money as long as Reynolds Wrap keeps everything wrapped up tight
Your Mama's as good a wife and Mama as she can be
And your Sister's puttin' that sweet stuff on everybody in town but me
Your Brother was the first-born, got ten fingers and ten toes
And it's a damn good thing cause He needs all twenty to keep the closet door closed

[He's not just pissed cause he's not getting laid, but because of the hypocrisy of the "fine upstanding family" that's standing between him getting some action. The last line of this verse is halarious.]


Maybe it's the twenty-six mile drive from Zip City to Colbert Heights
Keeps my mind clean
Gets me through the night
Maybe you're just a destination, a place for me to go
A way to keep from having to deal with my seventeen-year-old mind all alone
Keep your drawers on, girl, it ain't worth the fight
By the time you drop them I'll be gone
And you'll be right where they fall the rest of your life

[He's still kind of a dick, but he's getting more interesting by the minute. There's some genuine angst here. His sexual frustrations are just a part of the problem here. There's a class thing going on here too. The town names say it all. It's not as much fun to grow up in Zip City as in Colbert Heights and this kid wants out. His girlfriend's refusal to get horizontal is just a part of a larger tension between her wanting to play it safe and be a good girl and her boyfriend's being pissed off at the world around him. That doesn't excuse his sexual put downs, but he's a dumb kid. He's not stupid, but he's still kinda dumb.]

You say you're tired of me taking you for granted
Waiting' up till the last minute to call you up and see what you want to do
Well you're only fifteen, girl, you ain't got no secretary
And "for granted" is a mighty big word for a country girl like you
You know it's just your Daddy talking
Cause He knows that blood red carpet at the Salem Church of Christ
Ain't gonna ever see no wedding between me and you

[Now he's being a little mean. And finding out about the age difference her makes him a bit less sympathetic. 17 can be a long way from 15. But again, we get those little hints that there's a bigger anger that has more to do with social class than with just sex. She's a good girl, and that pisses him off for reasons that are bigger and more important that the fact that she won't take her pants off for him. Of course, his trouble is that he doesn't really have the means to articulate all that. What he knows for sure that she's not putting out and her Daddy's a pain in the ass. He feels like there's something more serious than that going on, but he can't put it all together. It almost seems like fucking her would be a way to get even. If he can't do that, he'll try to hurt her by breaking up with her. He's not a nice kid, but you sympathize with him.]

Zip City it's a good thing that they built a wall around you
Zip up to Tennessee then zip back down to Alabama
I got 350 heads on a 305 engine
I get ten miles to the gallon
I ain't got no good intentions

[Great last verse. He's got a jazzed up car and he lives on the state line. He's out of here.

If he doesn't run out of gas first. That's a distinct possibility.

If you look up Zip City on a map, you'll find that it's a real place. It's an unincorporated town near the Tennessee Alabama border (just where Cooley says it is). It's a community that doesn't enjoy the respect of being "official." It's the perfect place for the kid in the song, who's a disreputable neither-here-nor-there guy to live. He's always driving around and seething.

In the notes Patterson wrote for the album, he insists that this song is mostly true. Cooley's songs always turn out to be autobiographical, and Patterson's always the one explaining them. That pretty much exemplifies their roles in the band. Cooley's got real depths, but he plays it cool. Meanwhile Patterson's waving his arms around and yelling about his family stories.]