PREMIERE: Featherpocket’s Mini-Western ‘Cowboy Hat’ Lays a Liar to Rest

Jason Cline’s country-adjacent alt-rock band Featherpocket delivers a delightful four-minute pocket Western in the jaunty new single “Cowboy Hat,” which premiered today and can be found below.  

Drawing on Cline’s chiming, coiling guitar; producer Justin Aswell’s cantering percussion; and Jason Atkins’ tinkling honky-tonk piano and swirling zydeco accordion, the catchy tune evokes faux Wild West music like The Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon” and Joe Strummer’s soundtrack to spaghetti Western satire Walker.

In “Cowboy Hat,” Cline spins a tall tale about a habitual, cowboy-hatted liar in his good-natured, grainy and adenoidal drawl. Meanwhile, Dazy Bea’s ethereal backing vocals sigh like wind sweeping down the dusty plain. 

“Lean back in your cowboy hat/ Lyin’ like you’re tellin’ the truth/ When thunderstorms come rolling in/ (You’re) lyin’ like you’re tellin’ the truth…”

Cline told Queen City Nerve he started writing the song’s melody on a guitar then began ad-libbing words. Someone walked by wearing a cowboy hat, which prompted the lyrics:

“They’ve got the hat but I bet they never wrangled no cattle/ Probably can’t even tie a lasso…” 

“I think that’s true of most who don the Stetson, myself included,” Cline noted.

“Cowboy Hat” boasts a battery of organic-sounding instruments, but a weird electronic touch underpins the amiable, ambling tune — a fuzzy foot-dragging sound that shadows the song’s drums.

As it turns out, the sound was a happy accident. 

“We tried using real drums, but wound up … using the programmed drums [on my demo for the song],” Cline said. “To expedite the process, we ported my demo in and used software to separate the different tracks. The software created that cool sounding artifact that begins the song and runs throughout [it].”

Like tumbleweeds rolling down a frontier street, that artifact adds a baleful texture to the folkloric tune. 

Among the song’s many pleasures is a drop-out where Cline huskily intones, “Lie to me, baby,” followed by a resounding slap to the face. At another point, the crack of a gunshot ushers in the song’s bridge. 

Here Cline delivers a spoken word interlude in a husky, slightly menacing tone: “I’ll tell you what you ain’t/ Not a hero/ Not a saint/ Not a cowboy on the trail…” 

If those words carry emotional heft, it’s because Cline learned that someone once close to him had lied to him about some foundational truths at the core of their relationship just as he was composing “Cowboy Hat.”

“I took that story, dressed it up in a Western theme, and finished the song,” Cline says.  “At its core, it’s an allegorical murder ballad warning about the perils and destructive power of lying to avoid accountability.”

Read more: Featherpocket Is a Little Less Country, a Lot More Rock ‘N’ Roll (2023)

Near the end of “Cowboy Hat,” the ululating cry from Ennio Morricone’s theme for The Good, The Bad and the Ugly echoes eerily, setting up the song’s climax in which the unreliable protagonist is gunned down outside a saloon. 

One last rendition of the honeyed yet ominous “Cowboy Hat” chorus spells out the epitaph for an inveterate liar: “Thunderstorms come rolling in/ They finally caught up with you…”