Last Friday, alt-country songwriter Dougie Poole shared the latest single from his forthcoming Wharf Cat LP The Freelancer’s Blues titled “The Who’s Who of Who Cares”—a clever neologism betraying the artist’s knacks for wordplay and subtle humor (have you heard “Vaping on the Job” yet?). Dougie also has a knack for reverently recreating authentic outlaw country, which may come as a bit of a surprise to anyone who recognizes his name from show flyers hanging around Brooklyn’s DIY scene.
It’s this scene Poole had in mind when penning “Who’s Who,” a song celebrating the creative community he came up in. “Instead of ‘the who’s who of who cares’ being the other people, ‘the who’s who of who cares’ were my people,” he explains, countering an earlier point that the term originally referred to a gaggle of unwanted party guests. “The artists I work with, and play shows with, who don’t always know whether to keep going or pack it in. When you’re in your early twenties, a lot of people you know are musicians. It’s what’s so beautiful about a DIY scene—you’ve got a lot of different voices.”
Today Dougie’s sharing a video for the track, which takes the song in a bit of a different direction. From the familiar static of the opening audio clip to the East-Coast highway imagery, Poole’s video for “The Who’s Who” pays direct homage to the title sequence for The Sopranos, evidently another source of inspiration for the songwriter. Check out the video below to see Poole giddy standing outside Tony’s house.
The Freelancer’s Blues is out this Friday, June 12, via Wharf Cat Pre-order it here.
