Sturgill Simpson: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Sturgill Simpson doesn t fit today s common image of a country singer. When he arrived for his Tiny Desk Concert, the 36yearold Kentucky native sauntered in sleepyeyed, wearing jeans, a pair of old canvas tennis shoes, no socks and a wellworn buttondown blue shirt, one of only two identical shirts he said he had in rotation while on tour. (He appeared a few nights later on Letterman wearing either the same garment or its twin. ) Simpson s songs don t sound like what you d expect, either: Mostly, it seems, he writes about taking drugs and drinking. Opening his Tiny Desk performance with the seemingly existential meditation Turtles All The Way Down, Simpson tells the audience it s about some other stuff, but mostly He follows that song with Time After All ( I wanna roll off the tempo, lay back and get high ) and Life Of Sin ( Every day I m smokin my brain hazy. .. I keep drinking myself silly ) before closing with Water In The Well, a tamer, comparatively melancholy reflection on loneline