“When I grew up and started traveling around the country, I began seeing certain truths in people’s struggles and pains, and I realized that the America that was given to me wasn’t what I’d been told it was,” Culwell reflects. “The patriotism that my father passed down didn’t have anywhere to land because that America simply didn’t exist. I’m a father myself now, and I think part of the inspiration for these songs was to try and give my children the tools to love this country for what it is and what it can be, to provide them with an accurate picture of where they are and what it means to love and hope and have empathy.”
Love and hope and empathy have long been touchstones of Culwell’s writing, a style that NPR raved “wring grace from plain and often dark details, expressing the realities of class and region in ways that many other writers barely touch.” ‘Flatlands’ was a stark meditation on the forgotten emptiness of the Texas panhandle, and its sparse arrangements and profound lyrics drew plaudits from around the world. Rolling Stone said that Culwell has “a voice as big as the Texas horizon,” while Guitar World praised the album as “masterfully crafted and artfully delivered,” and Country Weekly called it “both deeply personal and universal in its depiction of struggle.” In the UK, Mojo gushed that Culwell “shapes his characters with dirt, blood, [and] spiritual foreboding,” and The Mail On Sunday proclaimed that the album “heralds a gritty, poetic new American voice.” The music earned Culwell dates with Patty Griffin, Hayes Carll, Ashley Monroe, Billy Joe Shaver, and Amy Speace among others, and racked up more than a million streams on Spotify.
You can’t feed a family on good reviews alone, though, and as Culwell’s brood grew, he had a choice to make about the kind of father and husband he wanted to be.
“I see a lot of guys in this business forego relationships and families, and my wife and I decided we weren’t going to do that,” says Culwell. “I’ve been married almost fourteen years and I’m committed to home life, but it takes sacrifice and balance.”
Culwell put touring on a temporary hold to be there for his kids, and in order to help pay the bills, he took on a series of increasingly odd jobs: roofing salesman, landscaper, tree cutter, pedal tavern driver. Each took its toll, and while ferrying drunk bachelorettes around Nashville on an alcohol-fueled megabike was perhaps the most harrowing, it was the tree-cutting job that nearly killed him.
“I was out working by myself when I made a poor cut on a fallen tree and it started rolling at me,” he remembers. “I ripped my shoulder out of my socket and came within an inch of cutting my face in two that day.”
Around the same time, Culwell’s friends Ethan Ballinger (Lee Ann Womack, Aubrie Sellers) and Megan McCormick (Jenny Lewis, Conor Oberst) approached him about getting back into the studio. It was nothing serious, they assured him, just a few songs for fun, but he quickly realized they had grand designs on producing a full length LP for him. Culwell had been reluctant to commit to making another album, but he soon found himself deeply invested in the project and grateful that he’d been tricked into it. They worked off-hours at Zac Brown’s Southern Ground studio, recording a few songs here and a few songs there whenever Ballinger and McCormick’s touring schedules allowed. With half the album completed over the course of nearly a year, Culwell added producer and longtime collaborator Neilson Hubbard (Glen Phillips, Apache Relay) to the team, and the remaining songs were finished in a short burst of concentrated writing and recording at Hubbard’s studio.
“I knew that last batch of songs was going to be an intense sprint, and the team and environment evolved perfectly to let the album flex into full form,” says Culwell. “Having Ethan, Meghan, and Neilson all producing together in a small studio like that was the perfect setup for capturing the chaos and the intimacy of the music. Imagine having Brett Favre, Drew Brees, and Peyton Manning all calling the shots at once, but with the humility to defer to each other most of the time. It was weird and tense and glorious.”
The album opens with the dreamy “Can You Hear Me,” a reverb-soaked rocker that calls to mind the swirling soundscapes of The War on Drugs mixed with the anthemic drive of Bruce Springsteen. The album’s sound is a major leap from the stripped-down weariness of ‘Flatlands,’ but Culwell pulls it off with ease, drawing on a cast of characters who are alternately motivated by hopeful promise and bitter resentment. On the relentless, fuzzed-out “Dig A Hole,” he channels the anger and helplessness that run rampant in parts of the country looking for someone, anyone, to lash out at for their struggles, while the wistful title track presents a narrator tenaciously holding on to a past he (may or may not) be better off scrapping, and the deceptively charming “Dog’s Ass” draws on the dark memories of a family who’s livelihood was tightly hitched to the price of oil."
“My grandpa, my uncle, my dad, and his cousin all started a trucking company together in the ’80s, and they made good money working in the regional oilfield,” says Culwell. “The bulk of their money was made with a large oil company that was using my family’s little business to write off huge sums on their taxes, and when oil crashed, my folks were stuck holding the bag. They had to find a way to pay for their 18-wheelers, so they took to over-the-road driving, and my grandpa ended up having a stroke and getting into a head-on collision. There’s no chance I’ll ever believe that stroke wasn’t brought on by the greed and corruption of those oilmen.”
Despite its fascination with the dark underbelly of the American Dream, there remains an unshakable sense of promise on the album, an eternal spring of optimism that believes in better days to come. Songs like the gentle “Moon Hangs Down” and “Tie A Pillow To My Tree” began life as improvised lullabies for Culwell’s daughters, and it’s no surprise they hold the most beauty and wisdom of any tracks on the record.
“I’d write a single line one night, a few more a week later, and so on, until eventually we were singing the songs whole,” he explains. “Singing those tunes with my family is easily my greatest success in music. I hope those songs will still be useful to my girls someday when they’re old ladies and I’m gone. That’s all I’m after.”
In that sense, Culwell’s already achieved everything he could hope for with ‘The Last American.’ He’s crafted a collection that’s built to last, one that’s sturdy enough to weather the storms of today, and one that’s certain to be there for the brighter tomorrows still to come.
Bobby Jean
Ryan Culwell Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
She said there was nothing that I could have done
There was nothing nobody could say
Me and you we've known each other ever since we were sixteen
I wished I would have known I wished I could have called you
Just to say goodbye Bobby Jean
Now you hung with me when all the others turned away turned up their nose
We told each other that we were the wildest, the wildest things we'd ever seen
Now I wished you would have told me I wished I could have talked to you
Just to say goodbye Bobby Jean
Now we went walking in the rain talking about the pain from the world we hid
Now there ain't nobody nowhere nohow gonna ever understand me the way you did
Maybe you'll be out there on that road somewhere
In some bus or train traveling along
In some motel room there'll be a radio playing
And you'll hear me sing this song
Well if you do you'll know I'm thinking of you and all the miles in between
And I'm just calling one last time not to change your mind
But just to say I miss you baby, good luck goodbye, Bobby Jean
The lyrics to Ryan Culwell's song Bobby Jean are a heart-wrenching tribute to a lost friend. The singer in the song reflects on the years he shared with a woman named Bobby Jean. They were close friends who shared a love of music and fashion. However, the last time the singer went to visit Bobby Jean, her mother told him she had gone away and there was nothing anyone could have done to help her. The singer expresses his regret for not having known that she was struggling or being able to say goodbye.
The last verse of the song is particularly poignant. The singer imagines Bobby Jean out on the road, listening to the radio and hearing him sing this song. He wishes her well but also wants to convey his sadness at her absence. It is a beautifully written, emotional tribute to a lost friend, and the lyrics are sure to strike a chord with anyone who has experienced the pain of losing someone close.
Line by Line Meaning
Well I came by your house the other day, your mother said you went away
I recently visited your house and spoke to your mother who informed me that you have left.
She said there was nothing that I could have done
Your mother believes that there was nothing I could have done to prevent you from leaving.
There was nothing nobody could say
According to your mother, there was no advice or words of wisdom that anyone could offer to change your decision to leave.
Me and you we've known each other ever since we were sixteen
We have been friends since we were sixteen years old.
I wished I would have known I wished I could have called you
I wish I had been informed earlier about your departure and had the opportunity to call you.
Just to say goodbye Bobby Jean
I only wanted to say farewell to you, Bobby Jean.
Now you hung with me when all the others turned away turned up their nose
You stood by me when everyone else walked away or judged me harshly.
We liked the same music we liked the same bands we liked the same clothes
Our mutual interests were music, bands, and fashion.
We told each other that we were the wildest, the wildest things we'd ever seen
We shared stories about the most adventurous and daring things we had experienced or witnessed.
Now I wished you would have told me I wished I could have talked to you
I wish you had confided in me or at least given me the opportunity to talk to you.
Just to say goodbye Bobby Jean
Again, I only wanted to say goodbye to you, Bobby Jean.
Now we went walking in the rain talking about the pain from the world we hid
We once took a walk in the rain, discussing the distress we were keeping hidden from others.
Now there ain't nobody nowhere nohow gonna ever understand me the way you did
I believe that no one in this world will be capable of understanding me the same way you did.
Maybe you'll be out there on that road somewhere
It's possible that you'll be traveling on a road somewhere.
In some bus or train traveling along
You could be traveling on a bus or train.
In some motel room there'll be a radio playing
Perhaps, in a motel room, a radio is playing a tune.
And you'll hear me sing this song
And if you hear this song, you'll know it's me.
Well if you do you'll know I'm thinking of you and all the miles in between
If you happen to hear this song, you'll know that I'm thinking of you despite the distance between us.
And I'm just calling one last time not to change your mind
I'm calling you now for the last time. I'm not trying to persuade you to change your decision.
But just to say I miss you baby, good luck goodbye, Bobby Jean
I just want to express that I miss you and to bid you farewell, Bobby Jean. Good luck to you.
Contributed by Reagan O. Suggest a correction in the comments below.