Compass Point was released in 1979 on Columbia.

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Track Listing
All Songs written by David Allan Coe.

  1. “Heads or Tails” – 2:04 icon-lyrics
  2. “Three Time Loser” – 2:05 icon-lyrics
  3. “Gone (Like)” – 6:26 icon-lyrics
  4. “Honey Don’t” – 2:54 icon-lyrics
  5. “Lost” – 3:33 icon-lyrics
  6. “Merle and Me” – 3:39 icon-lyrics
  7. “Loving Her (Will Make You Lose Your Mind)” – 1:54 icon-lyrics
  8. “The Fish Aren’t Bitin’ Today” – 3:08 icon-lyrics
  9. “X’s and O’s (Kisses and Hugs)” – 3:46 icon-lyrics

Liner Notes

Ten years of freedom are behind me now. I’m still searching for success. Still trying to make people see the music is not the man. Listen to what the man says instead of being put off by my lifestyle. The music’s always been there. It will always be there. If you just listen. For as the profits pour forth their predictions so shall I pour forth my feelings. It’s very important to me that you accept me on my own merits. And love me in spite of my faults. For only in this life shall you see the son. The father will never make himself visible. Is it that you find me a little too honest? In a world of fantasies and escapes how can I know you love the son if you don’t tell the father? Write me when you can. I like hearing from you. My address is Box 610B , Rt # 1 , Big Pine Key, Florida 33043. Love David Allan Coe

1 Comment

  1. David Allan Coe was prolific in the 1970s; he released nine albums between 1974-1979 on the Columbia label alone, along with some self-released albums of questionable taste for fan-club members and Texas Moon on the Plantation label. Compass Point is a solid outing from top to bottom. Coe goes to the well once more for respect, with a cast of killer studio musicians — some of whom were members of his road band — and the combined production talents of Billy Sherrill and Ron Bledsoe, who had come to work together seamlessly. With Bledsoe’s gritty, in-your-face, performance-based approach and Sherrill’s polish and sense of space and texture, they were able to balance all of the inherent contradictions in Coe’s music, from the gorgeous balladry of “Gone,” “Heads or Tails,” and the elaborately arranged dark honky tonk of “Merle and Me” (not Haggard) to the rocking bluegrass stomp of “Honey Don’t” and the boozy Tex-Mex swagger of “Lost.” The album’s classic has to be “Loving Her (Will Make You Lose Your Mind).” Here, hard country instrumentation meets Tejano melody and Caribbean backbeats in an easy, shuffling breeze of a dark song of regret and warning. As a coda to a decade that went by in a blur of fame, success, madness, tragedy, and disappointment, Coe left it on a very high note with an album that looked brightly to the future.

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