{"id":6049,"date":"2026-06-06T14:00:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T18:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=6049"},"modified":"2026-06-07T10:25:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T14:25:28","slug":"jericho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/jericho\/","title":{"rendered":"Jericho (Joe Ely\/Butch Hancock)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jericho (Butch Hancock via Joe Ely)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jIyPIzQV3ZI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Yet another from Joe Ely&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Honky Tonk Masquerade<\/em> album, written by his buddy Butch Hancock. I&#8217;ve already done posts about a bunch ofsongs from that album, and from Joe&#8217;s other records, some of them written by Butch, some by Joe: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/boxcars\/\">Boxcars<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/because-of-the-wind\/\">Because of the Wind<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/west-texas-waltz\/\">West Texas Waltz<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/row-of-dominoes\/\">Row of Dominoes<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/me-and-billy\/\">Me and Billy the Kid<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wishing-for-you\/\">Wishing for You<\/a>&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-2998\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Joe-Ely-LP-e1660418076967.jpg?resize=276%2C276&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"276\" height=\"276\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Joe-Ely-LP-e1660418076967.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Joe-Ely-LP-e1660418076967.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 276px) 100vw, 276px\" \/>I&#8217;ve said it all before: Joe was a seminal artist for me, first on record and then live, many times, in all kinds of formats. I interviewed him several times, hung out with him a little, drove him to the airport once. I loved his music, liked him a lot as a person, was pleased that he liked\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/elijahwald.com\/corrido.html\"><em>Narcocorrido<\/em><\/a>, was pleased that he recognized me when I turned up at shows, and dragged a lot of other people out to see those shows, because they were incredible.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think I ever learned this song, in the sense of sitting down and trying to; I just listened to that album enough that at some point I realized that I knew it. I don&#8217;t ever recall performing it onstage; it&#8217;s always just been something I played for my own pleasure. I don&#8217;t remember if I always played it with the Latin\/Caribbean rhythm and half-assed rasgueados, but it makes sense for the same reasons it made sense when Joe started touring with a flamenco guitarist. The Texas sound has always been heavily Mexican, with a Gulf Coast\/Caribbean tinge. (In fact, that Spanish\/Mexican feel is a lot of what makes the &#8220;Western&#8221; part of Country and Western sound different from the eastern\/Appalachian part.)<\/p>\n<p>As for the lyrics, Butch often gives a twist of wry humor to failed romances, and sometimes even ridiculous humor: &#8220;I went through such a hassle trying to learn myself to float\/ Cause every time I stormed your castle, I&#8217;d wind up in the moat.&#8221; That&#8217;s gorgeously silly, both the idea and the use of language, the &#8220;hassle\/castle&#8221; rhyme and &#8220;learn&#8221; for &#8220;teach&#8221; &#8212; a classic bit of American slang that I grew up with from my father&#8217;s memories of Brooklyn.<\/p>\n<p>So, to sum up: just a song I&#8217;ve been playing for almost fifty years, because it&#8217;s fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yet another from Joe Ely&#8217;s\u00a0Honky Tonk Masquerade album, written by his buddy Butch Hancock. I&#8217;ve already done posts about a bunch ofsongs from that album, and from Joe&#8217;s other records, some of them written by Butch, some by Joe: &#8220;Boxcars,&#8221; &#8220;Because of the Wind,&#8221; &#8220;West Texas Waltz,&#8221; &#8220;Row of Dominoes,&#8221; &#8220;Me and Billy the Kid,&#8221; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/jericho\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Jericho (Joe Ely\/Butch Hancock)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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I've paid tribute to that pairing a few times already, in my posts for \"West Texas Waltz,\" \"Row of Dominoes,\" and \"Wishing for You,\" and don't have more to say about them... Joe reshaped my ideas about what I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Joe-Ely-LP-e1660418076967.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3915,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/row-of-dominoes\/","url_meta":{"origin":6049,"position":1},"title":"Row of Dominoes (Butch Hancock)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Yet another I learned from Joe Ely. Among the many debts I owe to Joe is that he introduced me to Butch Hancock's songwriting. Joe and Butch had teamed up way before I heard of either of them, in a band called the Flatlanders, which also included Jimmie Dale Gilmore\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/butch-hancock2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5977,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wishing-for-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":6049,"position":2},"title":"Wishing For You (Joe Ely)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This is neither the first nor the last Butch Hancock song I learned off Joe Ely's terrific string of records in the 1970s. (Actually, I just checked, and this is off his 1981 album,\u00a0Down on the Drag, which was not quite up to that standard, but still had some killer\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Joe-Ely-Ponty-Bone.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4704,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/west-texas-waltz\/","url_meta":{"origin":6049,"position":3},"title":"West Texas Waltz (Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, accordion)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"This is kind of a ringer, since I haven't filmed a live video to go with it, but \"West Texas Waltz\" was the only song I ever performed on diatonic accordion, which kind of required a band, and for a moment I had the band... so I'm posting that version.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/West-Texas-Waltz-EW-cassette-release-scaled-e1660431211470.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2997,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/because-of-the-wind\/","url_meta":{"origin":6049,"position":4},"title":"Because of the Wind (Joe Ely)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"July 28, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I first heard Joe Ely in 1979-80, when I was visiting my erstwhile washboard player, Rob Forbes, in Ithaca\u00a0 and a friend of his played me Honky Tonk Masquerade. Rob's friend introduced it as a fusion of new wave rock with country music, but I didn't hear anything new wave\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Joe-Ely-LP-e1660418076967-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4441,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/watermelon-dream-guy-clark\/","url_meta":{"origin":6049,"position":5},"title":"Watermelon Dream (Guy Clark)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 16, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"This is probably my all-time favorite summer song -- partly because of the lyrics and the way they fit with the melody, and partly because the guitar arrangement fell together so comfortably. It may have taken an hour or so, just playing and seeing what felt right, and that was\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Guy-Clark-old-no1-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6049"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6120,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6049\/revisions\/6120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}