“A 38 Special and a Hermes Purse” Shows Vulnerable, Raw Side of Rod Picott

Award-winning singer-songwriter Rod Picott bared parts of his soul when writing “A 38 Special and A Hermes Purse” and the video accompanying the track is equally gritty — as can be seen below. The black & white video is a simple set-up: Rod in a recording studio, alternating from close-up to expanded shots. It is a beautifully crafted expression that matches the tone of the track.

 “A 38 Special and A Hermes Purse” is the eighth song to be released from his latest album, Tell The Truth & Shame The Devil which was released July 19 by Welding Rod Records. It may be the most honest of all the cuts from the collection.

“This song was important for me,” Picott said. “It is a poem of truth to myself.” 

Last winter, Picott was experiencing severe heart problems that led him to write this song.

“To put it bluntly,” Picott shared, “my heart was headed straight for the cliff and the brakes were shot.”

As the title suggests, the album was intended to share his authentic self with his audience. It was an approach that came with choices to be raw, vulnerable, and given allowance to flaws.

“I wasn’t looking for perfect takes,” he said. “I was hunting magic and I wanted to tell the truth of who I am as a songwriter and human being walking this rock.”

This track follows a trend of introspection that comes with a potentially fatal health scare that is apparent as you listen through the album. The simplicity of the video performance highlights some of these “strange truths” by allowing the lyrics to overpower a stoic scene and tell the story themselves. 

“My purpose with this song was, to tell the truth, expose myself at this particular time in my life and to confront myself.,” he said. “This song tells my listeners and reminds me of exactly where I am in my life at 54 years old. It’s not meant to elicit pity or to manipulate. I simply wanted to write a song that laid bare what I felt and where I was at in my head.”

The video is raw. It was produced by Stacie Huckeba in a minimalist style, focusing solely on Picott performing the song in his home studio. It is shot in black and white and rotates through a few tight lenses of him performing. Starting with a rear shot of the neck of the guitar, the video circumnavigates the scene with quick glimpses at the lyric sheet with crossed-out words and scribbled notes. There is a blurred focus on the impassive expression on Picott’s face that the camera continues to meet throughout the performance.  

“Songwriting is a complicated art form,” Picott said. “You can write in a way that exposes you how you would like to be seen – compassionate, literate, funny, tough? There are myriad ways to manipulate your audience and their reaction to you as a performer.” 

As Picott said, he wrote “A 38 Special and A Hermes Purse” to expose himself in the most vulnerable light, and this video builds off the message of the song itself, shedding light on the person that Picott has become, but also coming to terms with himself after a life-altering experience.

“A brush up against mortality can wake some strange truths,” he concluded.