SINGLE REVIEW - BROOKS HERRING - RUNNING WILD

CHRIS FARLIE
Aug 5
2 min read

Having seen Brooks Herring perform during the #TEAMw21 Nashville tour, we have no doubt that he will bring presence when he arrives at Country Calling later this month. An imposing figure with his mohawk and fulsome beard, his version of "I Stand", an intense celebration of the American flag and all it means to him, was a performance that kept you gripped.

His latest single "Running Wild" gives an idea of what we might expect, as he looks out from a fallen tree, through his shades. his guitar resting on his torn jeans, Sound wise we start with a combination of thumping back beat, a harmonica and guitars slide and acoustic setting up a rhythm for Brooks to overlay the opening verse, where he outlines that he's not a man for messing with and that he does whatever the hell he wants!

"These days the night shift duty at the truck stop knows my name

Threw the candle in the midnight oil,

I lit up the honky tonk I work

I see the sun come up, cos I ain't been to bed

Gonna have my name cut into a stone when I lay my head

No rest for the wicked least for a few hundred miles"

Brooks gruff deep deadpan delivery makes every syllable quite believable. There's subtle clapping added to the mix and the harmonica echoes the sound of a train all adding to the overall atmosphere.

The chorus is a devil may care admission that he is something of a force of nature, that is not going to change his ways anytime soon. It's rawkus and gets ever more so with each revisit.

"I'm running wild, ride the lightning

Run on empty, the ring of fire

Rolling like the Mississippi

Mama tried, but I got bad down to my bones

Don't know where I'm going to go, sweet child"

The second verse kind of explains the wish to experience everything.

"Always been a runner, never been one for settling down

Spend my life in the backwoods looking for ways out of a one horse town

I found a 6 string taking to jump that Westbound train"

As if further explanation were needed

"No slowing down, no looking back, no staying for a while

I'm hell bound and right on track, I'm ready for this ride"