“The Lord Knows I’m Drinking“
Cal Smith
Written by Bill Anderson
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
March 3, 1973
Cal Smith might be the most surprising artist to have been in the mix while I was growing up in New York City.
I’ve written before about my exposure to country music through my parents. They had visited our family in Nebraska and heard “Jason’s Farm,” and it set off years of trying to search down the record because they loved it so much.
My mom was already a huge fan of “Country Bumpkin,” which I thought was cute, but I never paid much attention to. I didn’t think much of Cal Smith beyond those two records until much later in my life when it was time to start seeking out digital versions of the two hits we knew.
We had to settle for newly recorded versions of them, and I was quickly distracted by the title of today’s entry and clicked on it out of curiosity.
And boom. A new favorite record from the era.
I love everything about the systemic dismantling of conservative Christian hypocrisy on this record. The audacity of this woman to show up at a bar and get up in his business, all in the name of God, as if God isn’t seeing the both of them anyway and fully aware of what’s going down.
I love the dig at the end where he says he’ll put in a good word for her when he talks to God himself. It reminds me of an exchange I had in college with a lunatic from the Church of Christ.
He was trying to save my soul. I thought I could end the conversation by explaining I was already a practicing Catholic, but that just made it worse.
His face dropped as he said, “You’re not saved if you’re Catholic. You’re not going to heaven.”
I stretched my face into an exaggerated shock and said, “You’ve seen the list????”
I’m not a practicing Catholic anymore, and the older I get, the more tired I am of people pushing their religious beliefs on others when they’re just a smoke screen for their bigotry and hypocritical judgment.
This record captures the essence of that classic quote from Anne Lamott: “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
Or you can just go with Jesus: “You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Go work on that plank and leave the rest of us alone, lady.
“The Lord Knows I’m Drinking” gets an A.
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I had no idea this was a Bill Anderson song.
I have admired this hello-and-goodbye song for years for its confidence and directness. This guy is unapologetically owning his life-choices and about to take no crap from anyone while doing it. The wonder of Anderson’s lyric are how measured he is while dealing with the self-righteous Mrs. Johnson in a neighbourhood bar. He somehow sounds gentlemanly putting the biddy in her place, making clear even sinners can still have a working relationship with God.
One of my all time favourite songs and performances.
Cal Smith Smith soared with the right material.
This one is pure gold
First time I’ve heard this and it was as fun as your review promised. Two things jumped out at me while processing the lyrics. First, why does “Harper Valley PTA” have exclusive dibs on recurrent airplay for this genre of songs? This song’s message would still have an audience 50 years later and that “Country Bumpkin” doesn’t need to be Cal Smith’s sole legacy. Second, to whatever degree this kind of song gets made in the modern era, the roles are reversed and it’s the MAGA libertarian “owning” the busybody from the left. Montgomery Gentry’s “You Do Your Thing and I’ll Do Mine” isn’t exactly current but its the best example I can think of that had any mainstream success.
Bill Anderson deserves much more than credit than he gets being a genius songwriter. His observations skills were unmatched, and this is just one example. A great song about hypocrisy and minding your own business. “A+”
I have always been a big fan of Carl Smith dating back to his vocals on several Ernest Tubb’s Texas Troubadours albums and continuing into his early Kapp albums which showed an artist just waiting for his big breakthrough.
Unfortunately, Cal Smith was 36 years old by the time he achieved solo status as a recording artist, and already 40 years old by the time he had a top ten hit, so he figured to have a fairly short shelf life as a top-charting artist in the increasingly youth–oriented market. By way of comparison, Bobby Bare’s first top ten recording came in 1963. By 1972 Bare had already charted 29 times–and he was still three years younger than Cal Smith.
There simply is not much available by Cal Smith on CD. Neither his Kapp nor earlier Decca hits are available. He deserves better as he was an excellent vocalist who had good taste in selecting material. “The Lord Knows I’m Drinking” is a solid “A”, maybe even an “A+”.
I got a couple of great CD’s on Cal Smith in the CD era.I know “Country Bumpkin” is what he’s famous for, but he had some great gothic or noir songs like “Jason’s Farm” and honkytonkers like “An Hour and a Six-Pack” and of course this song.
Biggest mystery to me was why he went by “Cal Smith,” putting him one-letter off from a then still-active country legend and future Hall-of-Famer by the name of Carl, rather than by his real name, Cal(vin) Shofner. Or if “Shofner” was deemed not commercial, he could have used his middle name (like Toby Keith Covel later did) and gone by Cal Grant.
I enjoyed a lot of Cal Smith songs. Got a compilation of the original recordings based on my love of this song. But Kevin 100% right about Jason’s Farm. That became my favorite song on the compilation. A very sad song. Very underrated and also like the tell it like it is balls that was “An Hour and a Six Pack”
Bill Anderson writing this song was a joyful surprise when I found out. Cal Smith clearly had a good ear for material. I wish his stuff was more accessible because I’d love to familiarize myself more with his catalogue. It’s also worth noting he recorded Drinking Champagne had minor success with it, before George Strait would cover it 20ish years later.