“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.
Flatlands
Ryan Culwell Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Hallelujah, sing my song
I'll be back there, wait and see
Flatlands, always home to me
I been walkin in the woods all day
where birds just cry cause they can't see
there's no way to lift heir wings
Ain't got no family
miles of dirt in front of me
summers hot and winters mean
there ain't nothin in between
the earth can break a man
but I will take my stand
I'll climb my mountains
out in the flatlands.
show these bloodstained hands to me
said a fool must see them to believe
i climb my way to tennessee
now the only song I sing
take me back to where I can see
miles of dirt in front of me
summers hot and winters mean
there ain't nothin in between
the earth can break a man
but I will take my stand
I'll climb my mountains
out in the flatlands
someday you will find me lyin in my yard
coughin blood and cryin laughin at the stars
in a great big sky, in a great big sky
it's a great big, it's a great big sky
yeah
take me back to where I can see
miles of dirt in front of me
summers hot and winters mean
there ain't nothin in between
take me back to where I can see
miles of dirt in front of me
summers hot and winters mean
there ain't nothin in between
the wind can break a man
to scrape him off this land
I'll climb my mountains
out in the flatlands
hallelujah, sing my song.
Ryan Culwell's song "Flatlands" is a heartfelt ode to the singer's roots and childhood memories in the flatlands of West Texas. The song is marked by a sense of longing, nostalgia, and yearning for a simpler life. The lyrics capture the essence of the flatlands through vivid descriptions of the natural landscape, the seasons, and the struggles of the people who live there.
The opening lines of the song, "Wind's been blowin' all night long Hallelujah, sing my song," set the tone for the rest of the song. Culwell's voice is somber and reflective as he sings about his attachment to the flatlands, which he describes as "always home to me." The chorus, "Take me back to where I can see/Miles of dirt in front of me/Summers hot and winters mean/There ain't nothin' in between," is a powerful expression of longing for a simpler life and a connection to the land.
The second verse of the song speaks to the struggles of the people who live in the flatlands. "The earth can break a man/But I will take my stand/I'll climb my mountains/Out in the flatlands" is a defiant and hopeful statement about resilience in the face of adversity. The song's final lines, "Someday you will find me lyin' in my yard/Coughin' blood and cryin' laughin' at the stars/In a great big sky" are both haunting and beautiful. They offer a glimpse at a life lived fully but also hint at the singer's mortality.
Line by Line Meaning
Wind's been blowin all night long
The winds have been blowing hard for a long time.
Hallelujah, sing my song
Celebrating and giving praise for my home.
I'll be back there, wait and see
I will definitely go back to my homeland.
Flatlands, always home to me
My hometown, Flatlands, is always where I belong.
I been walkin in the woods all day
I wandered in the woods for the whole day.
where birds just cry cause they can't see
The birds chirp helplessly because they can't find a way out.
there's no way to lift their wings
The birds can't fly because they're trapped in the woods.
Ain't got no family
I have no family to depend on.
take me back to where I can see miles of dirt in front of me
I want to go back to where I can see vast lands of dirt before me.
summers hot and winters mean
The summers are hot and the winters are harsh.
there ain't nothin in between
There are no in-betweens; it's either hot or cold.
the earth can break a man
The earth can harm a man severely.
but I will take my stand
Despite the dangers of the earth, I will stand strong.
I'll climb my mountains out in the flatlands.
I will succeed in my aspirations even in the flatlands.
show these bloodstained hands to me
Let me see my bloody hands.
said a fool must see them to believe
Some people won't believe it until they see it for themselves.
i climb my way to tennessee
I worked hard to climb up to Tennessee.
now the only song I sing
Nowadays, the only music I sing is blues.
someday you will find me lyin in my yard coughin blood and cryin laughin at the stars
One day, I will be lying in my yard, coughing and bleeding while laughing at the stars.
in a great big sky, in a great big sky
In the vast skies above us.
it's a great big, it's a great big sky
The sky is vast and stunning.
take me back to where I can see miles of dirt in front of me
I want to go back to where I have scenic views of the dirt and land before me.
the wind can break a man to scrape him off this land
Wind can severely harm or even kill someone in this land.
I'll climb my mountains out in the flatlands
I will never stop climbing mountains, even in the flatlands.
hallelujah, sing my song
In the end, the only thing that will matter is the song we sing.
Contributed by Matthew E. Suggest a correction in the comments below.