Back in 1995 Steve Earle recorded “Ellis Unit One” for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack. “Ellis Unit One” refers to O.B. Ellis Unit, the Texas male death row from 1965 to 1999. And it’s really a good song. Dead Man Walking is famously about the death penalty, so Earle had to be like “Gotcha. Wun day-eth pyenuhlty folker cumin’ raht up!” Oh, does he not sound exactly like that? Because he does.

And the song: let’s see…is it unfair to say that if you locked every Bruce Springsteen song in a room and set them to fuxking, this is what would ooze from under the door after a few hours? Even though that seems a little unfair.

See? Anyway, when Milleria interviewed Steve Earle about the song,¹ it went something…like…this:

Milleria: Steve, “Ellis Unit One” is a very stark and level song. Despite the “swing low” chorus and the notion that even Jesus “don’t live on Ellis Unit One,” there’s a heavy inevitability that lays over the whole track that makes all of the different perspectives on execution basically point to the same, sad, end, and not some exalted romantic vision of the story. Did you intend something that was less political and more – let’s say humanist, perhaps – or did it just happen that way?

Earle: Well at the time I wrote “Ellis…” the state of Texas was torturing and executing dozens of people a year. That means every one of us was torturing and executing dozens of people a year, because when –

Milleria: I rescind the question! This interview is over!

Anyway, it really is a good one.

MAPPING IT

This one maps fairly easily at Ellis Unit, north of Huntsville, Texas on FM-980.

HEARING IT