Today's Country Magazine | Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis
2024 has been a year of resurgence for GRAMMY nominated musician and songwriter Ira Dean. Though he’s certainly not been quiet within his craft over the past decade, notching several cuts as a songwriter, it’s been since 2015 that we last heard from him on the artist side.
Kicking off this past spring with the nostalgic, heart tugged “Missin’ How It Used To Be,” Dean now returns to his honky-tonk roots with his latest, “1 To Hank.”
Co-written by Ira and Chris Wallin, and joined on the track by Uncle Kracker, the song is washed in the memories of his own whiskey-soaked days of the past as Dean tells:
"There are still stories floating around this town like folklore tales passed down about my whiskey years. Thank God I lived past them. When I sat down to write with my best friend in twang town, Chris Wallin, we penned a pretty accurate song about a long crazy morning I spent after a long crazier night before with Hank Williams Jr., (and a few others that remain nameless to protect the guilty) and lots of whiskey shots."
Dripped in a late-night honky-tonk morning after headache that glides through the toe tapped rhythm bent into the guitar strings, Dean surveys the morning after scene through bloodshot eyes in the opening verse, tallying that his left foot is in a flip flop while his right is in a boot, the club stamps on his hands provide the road maps to the places he had been the night before, etc.
Likewise, the second verse then sees Uncle Kracker cringing over a shared video of him on TikTok that’s dinging several comments of WTF and OMG, as the two-some then come together in the bridge to ask the common questions that naturally arise after a good-timing night that you can’t remember.
“How many songs I don’t know did I get up and sing?
How many girls did I kiss, how many beers did I drink?
How many old breakups did I call up and try to unbreak?”
With an accepting shrug of their shoulders and a mischievous smirk lining their face, the chorus has them nonchalantly ranking their epic night through the tongue and cheek lyrics that ask where it all falls “On a scale of 1 to Hank!”
With “1 To Hank” being the second song now released from his anticipated I Got Roads album, Dean has offered two very different looks at what we can expect from the finished project. However, while the overall vibes of each song carry their uniquely vast differences, at the center of each sits the signature characteristics of who Ira Dean is as a songwriter and artist as he weaves his story of finding redemption, peace, and happiness in life.
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