Format Digital download Genre Country | Recorded 2014 Length 3:08 | |
Released April 8, 2014 (2014-04-08) Label High Top Mountain
Loose Music | ||
"Turtles All the Way Down" is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Sturgill Simpson. It was released in April 2014 as the second single from his album Metamodern Sounds in Country Music.
Contents
Content
The song title, also in the lyrics, is a reference to "turtles all the way down", a lighthearted term for the concept of Anavastha from Indian philosophy, which states that there is no underlying basis, or ground, for existence. The song lyrics are about, in part, the psychedelic experience as brought on by drugs including marijuana, LSD, psilocybin and DMT. References are made to encounters with Jesus, the Devil, the Buddha, and reptile aliens. The songwriter's mortality, and the life saving effect of love, are also referenced. The musical form is that of a country music ballad.
Critical reception
In his review of the album, Thom Jurek gave the song a positive review, praising both the production as well as Simpson's vocals and saying that "The track features Cobb's nylon-string guitar, the wafting tapes of a Mellotron, electric bass, acoustic and electric guitars, and sharp drums framing Simpson's lyrics that refer to Jesus, the Old Testament, Buddha, mythology, cosmology, drugs, and physics, before concluding that "love is the only thing that saved my life," making it a glorious cosmic cowboy song.
Rolling Stone ranked the song No. 4 in its article "25 Best Country Songs of 2014." It praised the lyrics, saying that ""Turtles All the Way Down" is many things. Part twisted travelogue ("Met the devil in Seattle and spent nine months inside the lion's den"), part half-baked philosophy seminar ("Our souls must roam to and through that myth we call space and time"), "Turtles" serves as Simpson's grand mission statement for the rich storytelling and sentimentality that define this promising new artist."
Music video
The music video was directed by Graham Uhelski and premiered in April 2014.
In television
The song was featured on FX's The Bridge.