Unchained is an album released by country musician David Allan Coe, released in 1985 on Columbia Records.
Unchained was Coe's second album of 1985 and contains the minor hit âÂÂIâÂÂm Gonna Hurt Her on the Radio,â which got to #52 on the country singles chart. (Charley Pride did better with the more positively framed âÂÂIâÂÂm Gonna Love Her on the Radio," which hit #13 three years later.) This would be the first studio album Coe recorded for Columbia where he would contribute just one original song, with the songwriter becoming less prolific than he had been earlier in his career, but he scored two Top 5 singles in 1983 and 1984, with âÂÂThe Rideâ and âÂÂMona Lisa Lost Her Smileâ respectively, and just missed the Top 10 in 1986 with âÂÂShe Used to Love Me a Lot.âÂÂ
While he was relying more on Nashville songwriters, the tunes he and producer Billy Sherrill chose to cover often sounded like they came from his own pen, such as âÂÂAinâÂÂt Worth the Powderâ and the gentle âÂÂAngels in Red,â the latter written by Raybon âÂÂBuzzâ Rabin and sounding like a paean to prostitutes. (âÂÂSomeone to listen was all that I wanted/A man can have too many things on his mindâ¦âÂÂ) Coe's own composition, âÂÂHe Has to Pay (For What I Get for Free),â tells the story of a kept woman who belongs to a wealthy man but openly carries on an affair with the narrator, who proclaims âÂÂI know about him and he knows about meâ and the âÂÂshe comes to me for the things he donâÂÂt give her.âÂÂ
Other songs on the LP suggest Coe may have been trying to rehabilitate his image as a foul-mouthed drug-taking misogynist and racist. Bobby BraddockâÂÂs magnanimous âÂÂWould They Love Me Down in Shreveportâ has a slight gospel flavor as Coe sings about brotherhood and turning the other cheek. He also covers Hoyt AxtonâÂÂs âÂÂSnowblind Friend," an anti-drug song originally recorded by Steppenwolf in 1970 but quite timely in the cocaine-addled 1980s during Nancy ReaganâÂÂs war on drugs campaign. The most curious cover on Unchained â and arguably of CoeâÂÂs career â is âÂÂSouthern Man,â Neil YoungâÂÂs furious indictment of prejudice and racial violence that appeared on his 1970 album After the Gold Rush. Charges of racism levied against Coe largely stem from lyrics contained on his second independent release of explicit material, Underground Album, which came out in 1982. Coe also included the line âÂÂWorkinâ like a niggerâ on âÂÂIf That AinâÂÂt Country (You Can kick My Ass)â on the 1977 Columbia LP Rides Again. On that basis, Coe doing âÂÂSouthern Manâ can be viewed as profoundly ironic, but Coe also saw irony, later insisting:
Typically, Coe would muddy the moral waters again on his next album Son of the South, which would display him sitting with a baby in his arms draped in a Confederate flag. The recording of âÂÂSouthern Man,â along with the bombastic âÂÂEven After Forever,â betrays the slick studio sound of the time, as Sherrill did his best to keep Coe contemporary on the eve of the âÂÂnew traditionalistâ movement, which would feature an array of new young country talent that would edge Coe and his outlaw brethren off the country charts for good. As he had on his recent LPs, Coe recorded another hit from the 60s, this time âÂÂUnchained Melody,â which was originally the theme for the little-known 1955 film Unchained, from which Coe's LP gets its name.
Unchained peaked at #49 on the country albums chart.