The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #263

#263: "Poor Old Dirt Farmer" (2007) - Levon Helm

After I realized that last week was Women's Week here on the countdown (God, I sound like Casey Kasem...YES!), I thought I'd offer another themed week. This time, we'll have Roots Week, featuring as much acoustic instrumentation; unadorned production; vulnerable, troubled lyrics; honest singing; and trebly, trembly voices as you can handle. And, what better artist to begin roots week than the drummer of the original roots band, and what better song than one about roots themselves.

"Poor Old Dirt Farmer" sounds as if it's eighty-years old, as if the Carter Family might have once recorded it. It sounds like a traditional folk or bluegrass song, and some websites have even listed this song as such. In fact, "Poor Old Dirt Farmer" (the original version), is only thirty-nine years old. Fantastic fiddle-player and bluegrass singer Tracy Schwarz wrote and recorded it with the Appalachian bluegrass combo The Strange Creek Singers in 1969. That version is decidedly bluegrass (and it's great, too), but Levon Helm takes the song (from his great Dirt Farmer album--the best solo shot of his career) and--with the mighty help of producer (guitarist, fiddle-player, and a member of Bob Dylan's touring band) Larry Cambell, dusts off the cobwebs, bring out the accordion and--is that a jug I hear?--Helm's own soulful drumming, and slow the song down a hair, letting Helm's soulful, countrified voice (though it's not quite as deep and full-bodied as it used to be since he's recently had throat surgery), supported by his daughter Amy's background vocals, tell this tale of financial hardship, which seems particularly relevant today in light of the recent $700 billion dollar bailout of banking and real-estate CEOs while American farmers--even after pleading by some prominent musicians and politicians--were denied any renumertion in order to keep their farms that feed the rest of us.

Helm knows all about the trials and tribulations of farmers, as Helm grew up on a poor farm in Arkansas before hitting the road and finding a career with Robbie Robertson and company. Helm's personal experience yields him some authenticity points here, but authenticity don't mean a thing if there's no talent, no passion, and passionate singing has always been Helm's forte (it's no secret why he sang lead on most of the Band's songs), and it's his singing that's always given pathos and humanity to Robbertson's best songs. Here, Helm uses another songwriter, but the script's the same: the poor people, the homely people, have souls and wit and suffering and stories to tell, and Helm's voice humanizes the most overlooked of us and gives us another voice, lest anyone forget.