The men that Little Bandit's Alex Caress writes about seem to be the guys that you try to root for, even when they might not deserve the cheering section. They're hard to love. Well, they make themselves hard to love, with their wayward ways and their hardheadedness. They're irresponsible and they're a bit much to deal with, when it comes to love. They're not sure they know how to bring happiness to anyone. It includes anyone who falls into love with them, or anyone they fall into love with - those poor bastards and saps. There's one sure thing, with all of these cases - it's going to end less than amicably. It's all going to turn rotten and no one's going to feel good about any of the before or the after.
There are going to be periods of miserableness and it's unavoidable, for the most part. These men are cursed by their own inadequacies, those that have been dyed into their wool, those that their muscles have built themselves around, like weeds and vines. They are men whose faces are thick with lines, who drink and smoke themselves into oblivion every night, just to escape from their memories. Any of those good memories that they have are tainted and they can only make them sadder and more depressed, just one more thing that they fucked up and now have to regret.
Caress writes in that old Nashville way that can still resonate. It takes a person into those places that feel so good when they hurt. These are the sorry tales of men who knew better, but just couldn't get themselves to behave well enough to save themselves. They know they're bound for more sorry chapters before their book closes so they'd rather not go to all that effort to avoid them. They'll just pour their bad decisions a drink and find out a little bit more about them, before they revel in each other's company - knowing that they've found their soul mates. Caress sings, "Well, I go out and drink too much because just one is not enough/You'll say it's time that I come home/I made this bed that I've been sleeping on/This bed of bad luck/This bed of not enough/Of never finding true love/So now it's time to right my wrongs/Cause I've made this bed that I've been sleeping on."
It's a testimony that's not really an admission. It's not an intervention or a turning point. It's just being out there, on a road to nowhere, rolling over and finding a cold spot on the bed. It's not being able to hear any of the sweet voices singing harmony beside you any longer. For some men, that's the good stuff and they'll write about it, putting the harmonies back in where they think that they belong.