Well, back in 1967, nobody knew what country-rock was, because Gram Parsons had only just started telling them, and they weren't yet listening. Bakersfield was closing in on it from the other side, and Bakersfield got all the attention at that time, but Gram was there, below the radar, sneaking up on everybody.
So this is Parsons with the aptly-named International Submarine Band back in 1967, before he hijacked the Byrds for seven months and one album in 1968, and a good long time before the Flying Burrito Brothers.
Speaking of the Burritos, this song sounds a hell of a lot like "Christine's Song" on The Gilded Palace of Sin -- and it's also the only really good ISB song I've heard. Maybe I should get the album. Speaking of that, there are, in a sense, two albums "by" the International Submarine Band: Safe at Home (1967), and Back at Home, whereon some Parsonsless sidemen reconvened in the 1990's to milk the name for a few bucks. Be warned.
Yo La Tengo covered this song, but they didn't do much with it. Emmylou Harris recorded it too, back in the '70's as I recall. I'm not so fond of her version either, though she's moved so many mountains for the sake of Parsons' legacy that I feel guilty about not liking it. I'd like to hear Julian Cope do it, but I guess I never will.
I got this from Napster, so I don't have any credits until I get off my lazy ass and buy the album, but when you look at the lyric, you think Gram wrote it? So do I, so do I.
It goes like this, all bouncy speedy 2/4 and all:
Well a luxury liner, forty tons of steel
If I don't find my baby now then I guess I never will
I've been a long lost soul
For a long long time.
I've been around;
everybody ought to know what's on my mind.
You think I'm lonesome?
So do I, so do I.
Well I'm the kind of guy that likes to make a livin' runnin' 'round,
And I don't need a stranger to tell me that my baby's let me down.
You think I'm lonesome?
So do I, so do I.
Well a luxury liner, forty tons of steel
No one in this whole wide world can change the way I feel.
I've been a long lost soul
For a long long time.
I've been around;
everybody ought to know what's on my mind.
You think I'm lonesome?
So do I, so do I.
Well I'm the kind of guy that likes to make a livin' runnin' 'round,
And I don't need a stranger to tell me that my baby's let me down.
You think I'm lonesome?
So do I, so do I.