The Singles Jukebox

Turn your attention away from post-debate hot takes for some ruminations on American country music…

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Alfred Soto: On an album replete with rueful ballads in which Eric Church’s relationship with his muse often doubles if not supercedes anything meaningful with a woman, “Kill a Word” stands out for the prettiness of its central guitar filigree and Rhiannon Giddens’ harmonies. Excellent use of drums in the second verses, though, which suggests Church is still learning how to make records as well as he’s learning how to kill a word. Speaking of: the title’s inversion of the Book of John allusion is one more clever trick. I deduct a point for the sticks-and-stones line, but so often skeptics miss how well he sings. To my ear, he turns the words in on himself: the key part is “if I could only” kill a word. He sings as if he knows he can’t. Unlike Kanye-the-rapper, Church-the-singer can inflect his writing.
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Ryo Miyauchi: Eric Church’s overall downplay of persona in Mr. Misunderstood overall gets me good when it shows a man showing his soft side during the after hours, not so much as a portrait of humble realness. So his later attempts in this song to elevate it for a more noble cause is when his “kill a word” idea starts to show its creative writing cheese. The “stick and stones may break my bones” part stands out more on a personal note: even this guy can feel the blow of put down. Cliché as it is, it still sounds human.
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Anthony Easton: Giddens is one of the most innovative banjo players in recent memory and a vocalist with a precise, wide-ranging style. She could have complicated this fairly simple narrative. Instead she is relegated to a background hook singer. I’m not even sure that she plays on this one. 
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Edward Okulicz: “If I could kill a word,” Church ponders, before going a bit off the rails and detailing how much he’d relish a veritable word genocide. The chorus hints at the calm, meditative thoughtfulness of some of his best songs but the lyrics yank the song in awkward directions.
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Katie Gill: Funnily enough, a song about stopping hate and heartbreak through metaphors of sheer unapologetic brutal violence just isn’t sitting right with me.
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A.J. Cohn: Taking the sword to the pen, and sticks and stones to words themselves, Church graphically fantasizes about doing violence to language with the supposed intent of “turn[ing] ‘lies’ and ‘hate’ to ‘love’ and ‘truth.'” If his chosen methods seem a little ill suited to the task at hand, well whoever said that the tools of toxic masculinity can’t be used to dismantle hate?
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Josh Langhoff: Congrats, Eric Church! Not only have you conjured a disturbing Grand Guignol episode of WordWorld, you’ve promised to make us all dumber in the process. I mean, some of these words are really useful! “Over”??? You really wanna consign yourself to a life of saying “above”? In this brave new society where nothing ever ends, how will your children know when to turn off their episodes of WordWorld? Remember, you poisoned “goodbye” a while back, so unless they’re waving “adios” or something at the TV screen, that little trick won’t work. And no offense, but I’m worried that if you turn all these words into “love” and “truth,” the only song left standing in your catalog will be “Love Your Love the Most,” up until now the most idiotic Eric Church list song. Aside from Rhiannon Giddens, “Kill a Word” has one thing going for it: The sheer variety of killing techniques, together with the logical conundrums, tells us more about your narrator than he intends. Which might make this song less of a disgrace. Oops.
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