Sturgill Simpson – Turtles All the Way Down

The story

Sturgill Simpson got bored writing about heartache and drinking, so he went off reading theology, cosmology and modern physics, plus Rick Strassman's The Spirit Molecule and Terence McKenna's lectures. Out came Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, a wink at Ray Charles' Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, and Turtles All the Way Down opens it. It's a country ballad with a cosmic hangover: psychedelic trips, run-ins with the divine and the infernal, mortality, and the conclusion that love is what pulls you through. The title comes from the old story of a world resting on a turtle, resting on another turtle, forever down – shorthand for the idea that existence has no bottom floor.

Simpson saw the acid country guy label coming and asked people to quit staring at the drug references. The song is about love, compassion and respect, he said.

The video was a tight-budget job directed and edited by Graham Uhelski: a plain, close-up performance with the band, mixed with visuals from Electric Sheep, the screensaver created by software artist Scott Draves, who came aboard through Strassman. A shot of a cymbal set on fire with moonshine got cut for looking forced. Years later Simpson admitted the whole band was "high as giraffe balls" during the shoot, the screensaver had nothing to do with the song, and if he had to redo it he'd wear a mask and change his name. Rolling Stone still ranked the song number four among the best country songs of 2014. The turtles held.