I’ve never devoutly followed one band more than I have The Black Keys. An introduction to the Ohio-based band’s filthy, gritty, basement-recorded blues over ten years ago made me a believer. They were elusive, mesmerizing, and their sound was un-synthesized and textured. I attended a live performance on their Turn Blue World Tour, wrote a paper about their unorthodox method of recording albums for a college class, and scored a signed version of their most recent album, “Dropout Boogie,” on vinyl (distributed to the most grungy and magical record store, Grimey’s). I even saw The Black Keys’ drummer, Patrick Carney, in a parking lot in Nashville the first weekend I moved to Tennessee (obviously a sign from the music gods).
But what is it about The Black Keys that’s so captivating? Over the span of two decades, they’ve defined underground and underdog rock and blues. Their music resuscitates old, forgotten, largely unknown blues artists’ music to life. If it weren’t for the Black Keys, I would have never heard of the blues record label Fat Possum Records, or legends like R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. The Black Keys have a Ph.D. in the blues of the deep south and their albums do the teaching.
What has held me to them as a devoted fan is that they have never lost their identity. As a constitutional lawyer, my best comparison for their music is, oddly enough, the originalist school of interpretation for legal texts.
Constitutional Identity
Public meaning originalism is a theory of constitutional interpretation that tethers the meaning of the Constitution’s words to the date of ratification—careful to not unmoor the interpretation and wade into the deep, troubled waters of unpredictable, ideologically-charged contemporary meanings.
For instance, when we think of the term “search and seizure” under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, we think of what that phrase meant in 1789. We don’t, by contrast, use our modern guesses at what a “search” or a “seizure” ought to mean today. Yes, it can seem antiquated. And with some rights like those in the First or Second Amendments, it can mean extrapolating from the text to protect the right to post content on a website, or to carry a modern firearm for self-defense. But overall, the method preserves our Nation’s sturdy foundation—by recognizing the historical roots of our rights, and not replacing them with unproven trends and the subjectivities of modern life. And it prevents today’s judges from adjusting the law to fit their personal beliefs.
This conservative legal theory and the heart of The Black Keys’ music intersect, and they do so in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and the Mississippi Delta.
Hallowed Halls and Return to Roots
The Black Keys have worked hard to preserve the soul of blues music. Over a decade ago, the band made their way down to the swamps of Alabama to stir up some magic, recording their best record (subjectively speaking) titled “Brothers” in a decaying, nearly abandoned Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Rolling Stone categorized it as the band “crank[ing] out dark gritty blues in hallowed halls of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, channeling its mystical mojo.”
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio is the Independence Hall of music. It’s seen the likes of the founders of rock n’ roll, country, and every genre in between such as the Rolling Stones (who cut “Wild Horses,” You Got to Move,” and “Brown Sugar” at Muscle Shoals), Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson to name a few. “Interestingly, although ‘Brothers’ was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound long after the studio’s ‘60s and ‘70s prime, it’s one of the best-sellers ever made there.” Perhaps it’s nostalgia that fueled so many record sales, or perhaps being in the presence of a studio that cultivated so much greatness was the secret sauce.
Recently, The Black Keys released an album titled “Delta Kream.” That album includes 11 covers of blues legends, noting that they “made this record to honor the Mississippi hill country blues tradition that influenced [them] starting out.” The Black Keys went on to say that the “songs are still as important to [them] today as they were the first day [they] started playing together and picked up [their] instruments.” One journalist described the effort to pay homage to the history of the blues as “looking backwards for their future.” Although founding-era documents may not have the mystique of gritty delta blues, the concept of using the past to understand the future could easily be attributed to the theory of originalism.
The Constitution is our foundation—our Muscle Shoals, our Mississippi Delta. Without originalism, we might as well not have a Constitution. The late Justice Antonin Scalia once stated, “If you don’t take the words of the Constitution and what they were originally understood to mean, what is the standard? The answer is, there isn’t any standard.” The Black Keys are originalists because they understand that the foundation of their success is, indeed, the blues that came from the deep south, and they show respect for the music by playing it as stripped down as possible in an increasingly digital, synthesized world.
Principles Over Party
Critics of originalism might respond by saying: “Well, they reimagined old blues classics, so isn’t that more like a living constitution?” But the answer is still no. It’s important to understand a fundamental aspect of originalism—“the meaning remains constant even as new applications arise.” Modern-day America is unrecognizable from the Founding era, but that does not mean Founding era principles cannot guide our interpretation of the Constitution.
Originalism is not partisan. “It is not ‘Conservative’ with a big C focused on politics. It is conservative with the small c sense that it seeks to conserve the meaning of the Constitution as it was written.” Interpreting the Constitution from an originalism perspective isn’t exclusive to conservatives. The right to know what the Framer’s meant when they said it is a universal, non-partisan truth.
In a lost society, we must look backward for our future.
Mountain States Legal Foundation recently hosted a webinar on originalism. You can find the episode here.