"Vigilante Man"

Simple blues, going back as far as you care to go. If you work from the basic premise that modern music finds its roots in cotton-field blues, then modern music has forgotten its roots in the worst fashion. Less is more, guys. I've become accustomed to a version of this song performed by David Lindley and Ry Cooder, which lazily, menacingly winds its way along for seven minutes or so, effortlessly carried along on Ry's slide and Lindley's picking, reeking of the same parched elegance that the likes of Robert Johnson must have had when they walked into some roadhouse on a dry dusty evening. As Ry says in the intro: "This is an old Woody Guthrie song. Some of these songs he wrote for ... all time."