About Cover Me Up

“It’s not easy to sit down and open yourself up and say, ‘This is how much I love you,’ you know? It’s scary to do that.” Jason Isbell told this to NPR Music in 2013, shortly before the release of Southeastern, the record that marked the beginning of a new era for the Alabaman troubadour and his tenure as this decade’s best American songwriter. The song he was talking about, “Cover Me Up,” was a bold choice for Southeastern’s lead-off track: Solemn, stripped-down, and slow, it floors listeners with its stark vulnerability and the strength of its romance as Isbell unfolds his love for Amanda Shires, the fiddle player he married just days after he finished recording the album earlier that year. Southeastern is Isbell’s “sober” record, the one he wrote following a stay in rehab after years of hard-partying took their toll on the musician’s personal life (and professional one, too). As such, it stuns with its clarity and ability to cut to the core of his sentiment in a chorus or less, and “Cover Me Up” is the beacon of this. (The “I sobered up / and swore off that stuff” line in the song doesn’t fall on deaf ears, either.) It came as no surprise when “Cover Me Up” was recognized at the 2014 Americana Music Association Awards for its ascent to modern classic status. It earned the distinction of Song of the Year, and Isbell took home the additional honors of Album of the Year and Artist of the Year after he and Shires performed the ballad for a rapt crowd at the Ryman. Isbell may need another shelf for his statuette collection soon, as Southeastern’s follow-up, the remarkable Something More Than Free, netted him two golden gramophones at the 2016 Grammys, one for Americana Album of the Year and one for American Roots Song of the Year with “24 Frames.” He, Shires, and the 400 Unit, Isbell’s band, have been touring in support of Something More Than Free following the Grammy win, and the setlist of their current show is split between its track list and the rest of his catalog. While “Flying Over Water,” “Elephant,” and other selections from Southeastern go over brilliantly with Isbell fans, “Cover Me Up” is what brings the house down — and its current form serves as a reminder that a great love only deepens with age.