A song a day: Joe Pernice - Bum Leg

I tend to think Joe Pernice gets forgotten in the pantheon of great song writers but he has been churning out consistently great records for years now. My favourite song of his is Bum Leg because there is something beautiful in the way Pernice's understated (and undoubtedly great) voice recounts this tale of violence and flight. The song starts:

I got this scar above my eye
from the dirty little shit
who tried to love me underneath the bridge
I broke a bottle on his ear
as the sun was pouring down
I never stopped to see if he was dead

The protagonist recounts his ailments and woe as he is on the run from his past, "I'm a ghost I'll be fading with the light." With Pernice's vivid lyrics and the alt-country sounds that underplays the drama, this could be the ugliest beautiful song ever written.

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