My first music essay, “Cooley’s Law of Gravity,” appears in the newest issue of Utter Magazine.  The essay examines the songwriting of Drive-By Trucker’s singer and guitarist Mike Cooley to consider whether the mystery of great pop music can be solved with repeated listening.  Here is the hook:

“The singer, legs astride stage left, was all gaunt angle—square chin, bony shoulders, even his white flying V guitar.  But his music, while pointed and direct, tumbled out in a rounded twang to a bumbling beat.  From the moment Mike Cooley began singing, backed by his band the Drive-By Truckers, I strained to catch every word, like his girl waking up ‘sunny side down,’ the narrator ‘too proud to flip her over.’  As the pedal steel swirled among the lyrics, I felt in my limbs that curious blend of calm and energy when a song sounds exactly as it should.”

Read the full essay.