On July 25, Kentucky-born country artist Tyler Childers released his most recent album, “Snipe Hunter.” The title comes from a practical joke popular in rural areas of North America, where someone suggests going snipe hunting. Though the snipe is a real bird, the description and instructions given to the hunter are fake and usually ridiculous.
Throughout the album, Childers plays with animal imagery, folk tales and stereotypes about the American South.
The track off of “Snipe Hunter” to garner the most attention so far is “Bitin’ List,” a song wherein the singer declares an intention to bite and infect someone with rabies, if the singer ever were to get the deadly disease. Childers sings, “Foamin’ at the mouth, high in the hackles, motherfucker, I’m comin’ for you,” leaning into the stereotypical depictions of rabies in animals, as well as highlighting the more grounded symptoms of the disease, such as brain swelling, nerve degeneration and seizures. It’s a darkly comedic, vicious song contrasted with a playful, twangy instrumental and light, high energy vocals.
“Bitin’ List” is one of the more on-the-nose songs on the album, and its popularity — while understandable — obscures some of the moodier tracks with more complex, poetic lyrics. One more poetic track is “Getting to the Bottom” — my personal favorite. It explores the toxic and unexamined patterns of self-destructive behavior — such as alcoholism — in American small towns. The second chorus sings “With a tongue twitch like a lizard / And a grin just like a rat / Backed against a corner / After pesterin' the cat / Preparin' to be peeled open / Just as easy as dessert / Getting to the bottom of an angst hard-fought to learn.” Here, Childers’s lyrics are more subtle than “Bitin’ List” but are all the more evocative, speaking to a more spiritual despair than literal rage and highlighting Childers’s talent as a writer, not just a jokester.
“Tirtha Yatra,” another favorite of mine; it’s another more comedic song about a stereotypical red-neck wanting to go to India after reading the Bhagavad Gita, the 700-verse Hindu scripture. It deconstructs stereotypes about low-income individuals being inherently bigoted or uneducated, starting strong with an opening verse saying, “I'd go to Kurukshetra / You know, I couldn't even tell you if I am or not pronouncin' it right / But comin' from a cousin lovin' clubfoot somethin' somethin' / Backwood searcher, I would hope that you'd admire the try.” The song closes out with the lines “We'd play Louisville Breakdown / We'd play Shelvin Rock / We'd sing Hare Krishna / We'd play a song by God,” a statement on wisdom and togetherness in unexpected places.
The near-titular track “Snipe Hunt” is another more poetic track that details life lessons learned and about being the butt of others' jokes. The instruments are louder and more chaotic, with more distortion than in other tracks. He sings about being sent on a “snipe hunt” on a cold night with the lyrics, “And I sat on the hill like a Jeremiah Johnson / And I froze my dumb ass off all night.”
Childers brings an edge and a sincerity to country music that is seldom heard in the genre these days. If you’re someone who enjoys a more country sound, but find yourself off-put by the simplicity or politics of the lyrics of modern country artists, then Childers’s discography, but “Snipe Hunter” specifically, is a great album for you.
Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
