Copperhead Road

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Copperhead Road

Studio album by Steve Earle
Released	1988
Genre	Country, Country rock
Length	43:36
Label	MCA
All Music Guide link
Steve Earle chronology
Exit 0 (1987)	Copperhead Road (1988)	The Hard Way (1990)

Copperhead Road is an American country music/country rock album released in 1988 by Steve Earle.

The title song refers to an actual location in Mountain City, Tennessee. It concerns a Vietnam veteran who turns from his family tradition of moonshining to growing marijuana. (It also inspired a popular line dance timed to the beat of the song.)

The album makes Earle's politics clear: the title track attacks the War on Drugs, and the song "Snake Oil" compares the then president, Ronald Reagan, to a traveling con man. Both "Copperhead Road" and "Johnny Come Lately" (performed with The Pogues) refer to the Vietnam War. "Back to the Wall" is about poverty, and "The Devil's Right Hand" can be read as advocating gun control. (Earle has always stressed that the song is ambivalent on the issue).

However, unlike some issues-oriented musicians, Earle doesn't limit himself to political material, but also includes apolitical works such as the love song "Even When I'm Blue" and the religious piece "Nothing but a Child".

More recently Shawn Mullins, a fond admirer and songwriter, has been playing "Copperhead Road".

[edit] Track listing

All songs written by Steve Earle unless otherwise noted.

"Copperhead Road"
"Snake Oil"
"Back To The Wall"
"The Devil's Right Hand"
"Johnny Come Lately"
"Even When I'm Blue"
"You Belong To Me"
"Waiting On You" (Earle and Richard Bennett)
"Once You Love" (Earle and Larry Crane)
"Nothing But A Child"

[edit] Film

Copperhead Road is also the title of a short film by New York City based film maker Ian Ogden. The film is based on a nationally publicized true story of a drunken woman's chilling run-in with a sociopathic cop. By permissions of Steve Earle, it features his song "Copperhead Road". The film, Ogden's thesis film from New York University, has toured over 25 film festivals in the United States, Europe, and South America.