Robert Earl Keen: “Fourth of July”

Alas, there is no good music video of Robert Earl Keen’s rendition of “Fourth of July”, so I share an audio version.

The song was originally written by Dave Alvin. Here is him performing it on Austin City Limits.

Just after college I moved into an apartment complex with fabulously low rent ($720/mo for 1500sqft, divided three ways). It had a very high immigrant population and I believe a lot of them there did not have their papers in order. Some Asian, but mostly Mexican. The fourth of July light show there was actually among the most festive I’d ever experienced. Fireworks aplenty from the apartment commons. I don’t know to what extent it was celebrating their new country and to what extent it was just an excuse to fire off illicit fireworks, but it was a blast.

It was around then that I became interested in Texas Country Music and Robert Earl Keen, and the tone of this song matched where I was at the time. And not just because of the kids shooting fireworks below.