Country maverick offers perspective

Sept. 11 has without a doubt produced some of the most tragically lame music in history. One would expect artists to explore the intricacies that make such crises exist. Instead, popular music has exploited the public with the most shamelessly jingoistic music ever.\nThe worst of it is coming from the Nashville country music factory. The main culprits are Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (the Angry American)" ("Soon as we could see clearly / Through our big black eye / Man, we lit up your world / Like the Fourth of July") and Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" ("I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you / The difference in Iraq and Iran"), displaying the kind of arrogance and nihilism that propagates our cultural mess.\nSo, in comes historic Nashville outlaw Steve Earle with a song from his new album, Jerusalem, called "John Walker's Blues." A song that -- get this -- offers a different perspective, one from the side of the modern-day Benedict Arnold, not attempting to justify him, but merely telling a story. Surprise, surprise, conservatives around the country cry treason. Did people get this upset when Woody Guthrie wrote songs about Pretty Boy Floyd?\nThe truth is, "John Walker's Blues" is a beautiful song. Offsetting one man's tale is an Islamic prayer and the nastiest guitar tone you could hope to hear. \nJerusalem is truly a cross-section of Earle's life. From a man with six ex-wives, that means you get tales of heartbreak and the inability of men and women to communicate, along with the leftist politics that the times call for him to shout out. \nThe key to the album is that Earle offers no solutions for our problems. After all, this is not a campaign. At times, like on "Conspiracy Theory," Jerusalem's rebel stance can make you nervous, if not for yourself, than for Earle. In the final song, "Jerusalem," peace of mind is clearly made the objective -- "I believe that one fine day all the children of Abraham / Will lay down their swords forever in Jerusalem"