A Series of Essays on The Marinade's Favorite Albums of 2020 | Reunions by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

This is the first in a series of short essays looking back at the records we loved from 2020. The series focuses on how each album impacted Jason Earle’s life this year.

“Be Afraid,” the first single released from Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s Reunions came out in February of 2020, the same weekend I ran my first marathon. It was a fitting release date. The great ones have this way of putting out the sentiment we need at the right time. The novel coronavirus arrived in Florida in the same month but life was continuing as normal. Our challenges were of our own creation at the moment.

For the amateur, running a marathon is an encompassing endeavor. Most of your free time is spent training, meal planning, and recovering. Your emotional bank account is on life support for several months. 

To get across the finish line you need your personal support system, which I consider to include my friends and family but also the art I consume. Like art, running is rhythmic. The physical act itself and the process of training for a race both require a consistent commitment to coming back to the things you need to stay in the moment. 

The act of creation is similar in so many ways. When we find ourselves doing the work on a regular basis, treating it with a certain rhythm, breakthroughs happen on a more regular basis. 

What we know about Jason Isbell is that he does the work. Hours of guitar practice every day. Going back to the well again and again. 

Photo by Jason Earle

The result of Isbell’s dedication is a succession of classic albums. Prior to his 2020 release, the last three (or four) of his records are brilliant works. But, it is possible no record has ever hit me as hard as Reunions. 

The year 2020 was one for facing fears. Fears of democracy’s decline and possible end. Fears of mortality. We as a species had to dig deep. Isbell could not have known the depth and breadth of challenges humans would face this year, and that is why a song like “Be Afraid” is so powerful. Its message matters as much now as it will in five or ten years. 

New challenges and fears will follow. The same ones will rear their heads. All the while, great art - works of the magnitude of Reunions - will be there as support. A way to think through and deal with our fears. A “battle cry” as Isbell says on that first single.  

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s Reunions is the record I listened to the most in 2020 because it represents the best of us. Our ability to endure and innovate. Our willingness to keep fighting when the finish line seems to push further and further away. Whether pushing ourselves to run a marathon or just surviving a once in a hundred year shit storm, we can “be very afraid,” but we also must ask ourselves, “What have I done to help”?

The Consequence of Genius: Some Words About Jason Isbell's Reunions

Photo by Jason Earle

An odd consequence of genius is we come to expect it. When Bob Dylan puts out a mediocre or even slightly sub-par by his standards collection of songs, the effort is met with vitriolic critical rebuke. Such is the price of creating art that inspires across cultures and generations. Songs by Dylan and his ilk are not to be casually enjoyed. They are events requiring time to marinate and then parse.

The difference between Dylan and modern standard-bearers is the former is going to have an audience even after each perceived misstep. Everyone watches his mulligans because the competition in his heyday was minimal compared to geniuses in an internet-connected, streaming world.

Today we have instant access to truckloads of great songwriters. If one stumbles, our collective attention wanes, and in that lapse a writer may not recover for two or three albums- if at all. Jason Isbell has admitted to feeling a bit of this pressure. In a very candid New York Times piece, he confessed his new record Reunions was a different beast.

Long an Americana darling, Isbell’s notoriety and prestige stepped into a different gear with the Dave Cobb-produced trio of records Southeastern, Something More Than Free, and The Nashville Sound. Ask an Isbell obsessive about their favorite record and you will likely get a different answer depending on the day. This is because Jason Isbell is the best songwriter in popular American roots music. With the mantle of greatest comes a more critical and less forgiving eye.

Reunions will not settle the score. Art is not an objective competition so we cannot discharge the debate. Frankly, Isbell does not owe any further proof of greatness, yet further proof is exactly what this collection delivers.

With every song, he challenges us to think about our place in the world. By turning a mirror on himself, in this case a far-sighted mirror reaching to less proud moments of the past, he challenges the stories of internal valor we tell ourselves and roots out questions about how we are actually going to confront our issues.

If you just looked at Jason Isbell, maybe caught a tiny snippet of him saying something seemingly inconsequential, you would be forgiven for thinking he was just like us. He has a way of remaining authentically down-to-earth while orbiting the creative sphere in rare air.

The truth is in short supply even as access to information increases exponentially. We still get romanticized, sometimes sterilized versions of artists and ideas. Merchants of misinformation point fingers rather than offer honest appraisals of the way things are. Thankfully, Isbell is hyper-committed to the truth to the point of expecting it from himself and the listener.

Like a dog’s peanut butter coated pill, facts are better consumed on a full stomach with an appetizing presentation. All great songwriters have this ability. Isbell does it better than anyone.

On “Dreamsicle” — one of the biggest triumphs in his storied career — the narrator reminisces about a mother trying to make the most of a dysfunctional situation. Despite multiple narratives throughout the album, there are common threads to which we have grown accustomed with Jason Isbell records. Namely, everyone is doing their best, and if they are not then it’s time to start. His characters are broken and battered but each tale is delivered with empathy for the realities that lead to less than ideal situations.

Photo by Jason Earle

Even if you can’t directly relate to growing up in a dysfunctional family, the humanity in each story offers something universally unifying. Isbell never misses. There are polarizing songs on the other records. One person finds “Anxiety” speaks directly to them. Another thinks it a bit too much. A diehard fan names “24 Frames” as their favorite while someone else thinks it falls short of his best. Reunions does not have those tunes. It offers not a moment to check out or allow the songs shelter as background noise.

Honest introspection is typically tough by nature. Baring your scars for a discerning audience to examine and apply their own whims is an even bigger display of honesty. The characters of Reunions leave nothing on the field, including the role of a man supporting his grieving partner and trying to suppress his own jealousy or the performer exhorting their cohort to “be afraid but do it anyway.”

Each song is a masterpiece worthy of marination, and even after just a couple of weeks in the world they already feel all-consuming. It is the right kind of possession, one where the possessed grows stronger with each listen.

Artists on the level of Jason Isbell are lucky to get mulligans these days. Fortunately for Isbell, he has not needed one. If that day ever comes, let’s remember Reunions- a record that raised a bar already set so high only one writer could have cleared it.

Jason Isbell's Thirty Best Songs (an Answer to Steven Hyden and Brian Koppelman)

Photo by Jason Earle

Cultural critic Steven Hyden (@steven_hyden on Twitter) recently ranked the thirty best Jason Isbell songs for a piece in Uproxx. Brian Koppelman (@briankoppelman on Twitter) responded with his own list. Naturally, I got to thinking about what songs I would include if anyone asked. 

The number sounded daunting. Just thirty songs? Isbell has almost never missed during his career. Even as a kid in his early twenties he was writing some of the finest songs in American roots history. 

If you want to be the best, you gotta imitate the best. So, I decided to take on the challenge of meeting two heavyweight cultural thinkers at their game. 

The process of deciding my list of the thirty best Isbell songs looked like this. First, I listed the songs that immediately came to mind. That was good for about eighteen tunes in a two-minute span. 

Then, I walked away and let the list marinate. Next came an examination of each album and some rearranging (How did I forget Live Oak at first?). Finally, the list was made. 

It was not until after my group was finalized that I took the time to read Hyden and Koppelman’s lists. Of course, you will get little argument from me no matter what your list looks like. I just did not want to be swayed by either because I have so much respect for their work.

Photo by Jason Earle

What surprised me but shouldn’t have about my list is how heavy it is on the most recent three records. Isbell was my favorite writer of the three geniuses in Drive-by Truckers. I saw him play at a barbecue restaurant in Jacksonville Beach (twice) right after he went out on his own. I preordered the Southeastern vinyl. 

I remember the record arriving at my apartment in Jacksonville and spending the day listening over and over again. Crying and wanting to immediately go out and write. Those early songs had lived with me for years. I consider myself really fortunate to be about Isbell’s age. I’ve grown into adulthood with his songs as the soundtrack- each one hitting me at the right time, exactly when I was ready for it. 

Therein lies the power of a creative honing their craft. Isbell keeps getting better. Each successive release is stronger than the last. Only one of the three as yet released singles from the forthcoming Reunions made my list, but that decision was based purely on the fact that I have not had time to digest the other two. Early indications are this may be his best record yet.

With great respect to Hyden and Koppelman, I offer my list of Jason Isbell’s thirty best songs.

Photo by Jason Earle

1. Cover Me Up

2. Decoration Day

3. If We Were Vampires

4. Elephant

5. Speed Trap Town

6. Danko/Manuel

7. White Man’s World

8. Live Oak

9. Goddamn Lonely Love

10. Traveling Alone

11. Be Afraid

12. Outfit

13. Children of Children

14. Hope the High Road

15. Something More Than Free

16. Codeine

17. Alabama Pines

18. Chaos and Clothes

Other than “Goddamn Lonely Love,” Those first eighteen flew out of my sleepy brain this morning before coffee, morning pages, or a walk. A couple of them moved around, and “Goddamn Lonely Love” steadily worked its way up the list. The more I look at it, the more I think this is exactly right. Consider how good each one of those tunes is and how much they have impacted your thinking.  

19. Stockholm
20. Tupelo
21. Relatively Easy
22. Dress Blues
23. Yvette
24. Tour of Duty
25. Flying Over Water
26. Hudson Commodore
27. If It Takes a Lifetime
28. Flagship
29. Palmetto Rose
30. Last of My Kind

The last few are always the hardest. “Yvette” went in and out, up and down this list. After looking at Koppelman and Hyden’s lists, I wonder whether I should have included “Songs She Sang in the Shower” and “Cumberland Gap,” both of which were on my list at some point. 

Anyone reading this is asking about “Super 8” or “24 Frames” or “Different Days.” The purists may wonder where “Chicago Promenade” fits. You are right, but I’m not wrong. Debate and discussion are encouraged in the comments or over on Twitter.