I remember scrolling through my YouTube feed a few years ago, and I saw this Parker McCollum guy show up covering one of the Turnpike Troubadours greatest hits, “Good Lord Lorrie,” at Stubbs in Texas.
As a HUGE Turnpike fan, I knew I had to give it a listen. At the time, I had no clue who McCollum was, but the guy delivered one of the baddest covers of any song I’ve heard in a long time. From his harmonica work, to the electric guitar solo, the whole band killed it.
Another thing that stuck out to me was the crowd. The fans were going buck wild for this guy, and that was the first time I realized that Texas country music truly is a whole genre and brand of its own, with some of the most loyal fans in all of music. And I could already tell that this McCollum fella was well on his way to the top.
After watching that video, I knew I had to look this guy up and give him a listen. I decided to start from the very beginning of his Spotify discography (which at the time, he only had two albums), and dove into his first album he released back in 2015, The Limestone Kid.
Just about everybody who knows anything about recent country music has heard McCollum’s hit single “Pretty Heart,” or the follow up tunes like “Young Man’s Blues” and “To Be Loved By You,” but the new fans don’t understand just how good that first record was.
With a combination of country music, rock, the blues, and soul, The Limestone Kid album has some of the most unique sounds I’ve ever heard, criminally underrated outside of the Texas music scene.
So, without further a do, let me put you on the five best songs (in my opinion) on The Limestone Kid.
5. Galveston Bay
Talk about a song you can picture in your head like a movie. A sing-along of sorts, the song has McCollum singing about how he met this girl in Galveston, TX, and she leaves him stranded on Galveston Bay by himself. Comparing her to the wind and the waves, because wind and waves never stay for long, the man paints the perfect picture of how this girl is.
4. Prohibition Rose
Now, I love this song because it’s unlike any other song on the album. It’s a boot stompin’ song with strong steel guitar, making you feel like you’re hanging out at some honky-tonk somewhere in Texas. And the main character, “Prohibition Rose,” is a beautiful girl who runs the moonshine out to everybody in her town.
With her charming looks, nobody would ever expect her to be in the moonshine business, not even the cops… Except for the sheriff. In the song, it turns out he loves the taste of white lightning himself,… a customer of ol’ Prohibition Rose.
3. Silhouette
Here we see McCollum deliver some more harmonica work to open the song, capturing your attention immediately. He then goes on to sing about how he sees his old girls silhouette every night, giving him nightmares. As a message to her, he says in the chorus, “who I was ain’t who I am, I swore I’d do the best I can,” as he recognizes his troubled past in an effort to make amends and keep the love alive.
It does have a happy ending, though, as he leaves roses wrapped inside a wedding ring for her, because “who he was ain’t who he is now.”
2. High Above The Water
Now this is for sure one of my favorite songs on the album, but I have a hard time figuring out what exactly he’s singing about. He sings about “goin’ out in style, or goin’ out on fire,” and living “high above the water.” I believe he’s singing about taking a leap of faith and trying to make it big time in his music career, and the risks that come with it.
But hey, maybe he wants it to be about whatever you want it to…
1. Meet You In The Middle
Now this is arguably the most popular song on the whole album, as he delivers a great mixture of country and roots rock. Singing about meeting up again halfway with his old girl, he reminisces on all of the things that have happened in his life since the two split up.
From his grandpa shaking off his cancer, to his mama going insane, he has a lot he wants to tell his California beauty.
Now this was an incredibly difficult top 5, because there’s honestly not a single bad song on this album. “New Orleans,” “Lucy,” “Happy New Year,” you name it, they all have such different sounds that every song reaches out and grabs you.
If you’re a recent fan of Parker McCollum, you owe it to yourself to check out the debut album, The Limestone Kid.
And of course, I gotta add the full “Good Lord Lorrie” cover:
