Dress Blues

Album: Sirens of the Ditch (2007)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song was inspired by the death of Isbell's school colleague, Corporal Matthew Conley, a US Marine who was killed in the Iraq War. Isbell told Uncut magazine (February 2014) : "I knew Matt Conley not very well, he was a few years younger. I was coming off a tour with the (Drive-By) Truckers, and I called my mom and she told me about his funeral, which she'd attended that day, and when I got home I wrote 'Dress Blues' in a time it takes to write it down on a piece of paper. I already had the chord progression from a song I've been working on about Mickey Rooney, of all things. The song just fit that tune."

Comments: 1

  • Ron Usmc 1978 from Ridgeway, VaThank you for writing "Dress Blues". It's a tribute to all my brothers and sisters who paid the ultimate sacrifice. I wish you the very best.
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