Click to Listen to Hayes Carll's "Kmag Yoyo" and "Another Like You"

Texas troubadour Hayes Carll turned heads in 2008 with a pledge to kick the Messiah's ass ("She Left Me for Jesus"). The title track on his latest is a soldier's lament involving heroin, space travel and David Bowie. Now that's country music! In fact, it is: Carll unreels road-damaged stories with a boozy twang, his wicked couplets cut with a sentimental streak even when they're negotiating a hate fuck (the hilarious Democrat-Republican hookup "Another Like You"). Yet it's the more tender songs (the hard-luck ballad "Chances Are") that hit the hardest. What's that they say about comics and tragic streaks?

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“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”