From a good piece in Mother Jones on how T Bone Burnett chooses music for True Detective

“This show does not avert its gaze,” Burnett says. “It takes a good, hard look at who we are right now, in a very profound way…I live in Los Angeles, and I recently took a drive through the middle of the country, and I was stunned by what I saw. In places that had once had purpose, all that’s left is a pawnshop, next to a gun shop, next door to a motel, next door to a gas station, with a Walmart right outside of town. There are people working three jobs just to get by and having to take methamphetamines to do it. That’s the middle of the country, and that’s a plague that’s spreading outwards.

I grew up (and live) smack dab in the middle of the country which might be why this series resonates so strongly for me. I remember when those places had purpose and have watched it slowly disappear to be replaced by something real dark.