In his new hit single "Awful Beautiful Life," country singer Darryl Worley narrates the story of a small-town, blue-collar man who goes to church hung over from the night before, deals with a sometimes feuding family, prays for a cousin fighting in Iraq and ponders his own mortality.
It's not just a slice-of-life song from the red states. It's a slice of Worley's life.
"All these things that are said in this song are all real, authentic things about my family, that's all real stuff," Worley says, calling from a tour stop in Kansas City. "But that really represents a typical American household."
"Awful Beautiful Life," now at No. 10 on the Billboard country singles chart, is the leadoff single from Worley's recently released CD, the self-titled "Darryl Worley" (Dreamworks).
Worley never worried about including references to beer swilling and the Sunday sermon in "Awful Beautiful Life," although he does say it provoked some family commentary. "My dad -- he's a minister -- he even said, `You just had to talk about drinking and going to church, didn't you?'" Worley says, laughing. "I said, `Do you want me to lie?'"
"We said a prayer for cousin Michael in Iraq / We're all aware that he may never make it back / We talked about the way we missed his stupid jokes / and how he loved to be a soldier more than most."
"It's right next door," Worley says of the verse. "It's a real individual. And that's what the [military] is made up of, it's people from small towns and real families from all over this nation."
Worley, who first debuted on the country charts in 2000, was perhaps best known until now for his 2003 hit single "Have You Forgotten?" a saber-rattling political anthem about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Released on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the song rocketed to No. 1 on the country singles charts amid a good deal of press and controversy. That song's success also threatened to pigeonhole Worley as a flag-waving one-trick pony and overshadow his talents as a distinctive singer-songwriter.
Any lingering doubt should be dispelled by his new CD. Worley wrote or co-wrote 7 of the 12 tracks.
One of the most cohesive and consistent country albums of the year, the CD is marked by a strikingly alive production sound that Worley aptly describes as "honky-tonk grease."
As a whole, these are stories of the ups and downs of working-class life that eschew cliche.
The barroom lament "I Love Her, She Hates Me" rides boozy steel guitar and sawed fiddle.
Buoyed by weeping steel and melancholy piano chords, the Haggard-esque "If I Could Tell the Truth" is a world-weary internal monologue.
In the lilting and subdued "If Something Should Happen," a man facing cancer surgery asks a friend to look after his family in the event he doesn't make it through.
Male sexual bravado turns funny when the narrator of a one-night stand voices an age-old question in "Was It Good For You."
What drives the proceedings is Worley's hard-core yet pliable twang, a cutting and distinctive instrument that grounds him firmly in traditional country terra firma.
There's no questioning Worley's bona fides. He grew up in Hardin County, Tenn., just a few miles down the road from the stomping grounds of the legendary Buford Pusser, the bat-wielding Southern sheriff whose real-life, crime-busting exploits were chronicled in the 1973 film "Walking Tall." As a kid, Worley routinely saw the imposing icon tooling around town.
"He used to come by our church every now and then to do talks to the youth, just to steer young people in the right direction. "He was a mammoth of a man, huge, like 6' 7" or 6' 8", and probably 300-plus. And it wasn't fat, either. He was a moose. He really made an impression, an impact on kids. Just to see how he held their attention because of his size and stature." Worley says of the late Pusser.
Although his new record lifts Worley out of the political arena he catapulted into with "Have You Forgotten?", he's not shy about talking about his political bent. "I can tell you that my vote was for George Bush," he says.
The last several years Worley has performed for American troops overseas, including appearances in Afghanistan and Iraq. He'll spend this Christmas performing there as well.
He's reluctant to go into too much detail about performing in war zones, and doesn't want to take praise for his efforts. He insists he's just doing his part to support the troops and points to the efforts of many Americans who conduct church drives, send toiletries to soldiers and adopt pen pals in the service.
But he allows that performing in military zones has been a sobering experience.
"We've been in some precarious situations both years," he says. "You've got to know that anytime you fly or drive into a war zone, that anything can happen."
Taking off from the Bagram air base in Afghanistan last year, the plane Worley was riding in came under missile fire.
During a performance for troops at the Baghdad International Airport, a mortar was fired into the compound. Worley heard the explosion from the stage. Those experiences have profoundly deepened his gratitude and respect for the soldiers in the field, he says.
"You think you know what our men and women are going through, until you go there and sort of find yourself in the middle of it. Then you think, `Well, I didn't really know it was this intense.' The fact that it could hit right beside your feet starts to come home to you.
"It's just been a real learning experience, a chance to experience some things that a lot of my family members have gone through over the years. And it just makes me feel like I can understand them and be even closer to them now that I've experienced these things."