Waylon Jennings – "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" (1975)

 

I’ve seen the world with a five-piece band

Looking at the back side of me

Once a year, I take a ferry from Cape Cod to Nantucket and spend the day riding my bike, taking photos, buying T-shirts for my grandkids, and drinking beer.

The Boston Business Journal has accurately described Nantucket as “a playground for the well-to-do.”  The average Nantucket house is valued at more than $1 million, making it the most expensive place to live in the country.  (Median housing prices in Marin County, California, and Manhattan – which rank just behind Nantucket – are pretty outrageous, but they’re about 20% lower than prices on Nantucket.)

A typical Nantucket house

I’ll never own a house on Nantucket – hell, even the cost of renting there for a week is out of reach for me – but it’s a great place to go for a day trip.

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This year, after I was finished biking and taking pictures and buying T-shirts, I stopped at Cisco Brewers’ sprawling outdoor taproom on Bartlett Farm Road, which opened in 1995.  (Cisco – which now operates four taprooms in addition to the one on Nantucket – was independent for many years, but now is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.)

I sat at a picnic table and enjoyed a Whale’s Tale pale ale while a local “twang and bang” country-rock band that called itself Buckle & Shake serenaded the crowd.

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Buckle & Shake started off their set by playing “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way,” which was a big hit for Waylon Jennings in 1975.

Jennings – who would be on the Mount Rushmore of outlaw country music if there was a Mount Rushmore of outlaw country music – wrote “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” to pay tribute to Hank Williams in particular and classic country and western music in general.  (Yes, I know there should be a question mark at the end of the song’s title, but that’s not how Waylon wanted it.)   

Buckle & Shake

I got the feeling that Buckle & Shake’s frontman was inwardly smirking as he sang “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” – his performance practically oozed condescension.   

“I know that none of you is a Trump-loving hillbilly,” was the unspoken, read-between-the-lines message that the singer seemed to be trying to communicate to his audience (who were mostly effete snobs from Boston, New York City, and points between).  “We’re just playing this country crap to demonstrate what well-developed senses of irony we have.”    

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It turns out that I was reading the singer’s message loud and clear.

In 2019, the local Nantucket newspaper reviewed a performance by Buckle & Shake.  The review noted that the lead singer went on stage that night wearing a Reagan-Bush ’84 cap, which he said he did  “ironically.”

Here’s some irony for you: Ronald Reagan won Massachusetts in 1984 by over 70,000 votes.  (In case you weren’t around in 1984, Reagan carried 49 states that year – including not only Massachusetts, but also California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Vermont, which are all bluer-than-blue liberal bastions today.  The only state that Walter Mondale won was his home state of Minnesota – and he prevailed there by only 0.18% of the vote, a much smaller margin of victory than that achieved by Reagan in any of the states he won.)

Here’s a little more irony for you: Ronald Reagan carried Nantucket County in 1984 by a margin of 53% to 47%!

The Buckle & Shake singer thought he was directing all his high-powered irony at born-and-bred rednecks like yours truly.  It turns out that he also being condescending to his fellow Nantucketeers.

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I thought about leaving Cisco right then and there, but a single beer didn’t seem like fair recompense for all the miles I had biked that day.  So I bought another one and listened to the rest of Buckle & Shake’s set.

I was glad I did when I heard the next song they played.  I had no clue what the name of the song was, or who had written it – but I knew it was good.

I’ll tell you all about that song in the next 2 or 3 lines.

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Click here  to listen to “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way.”