"Born Again in the U.S.A." is a different story. It's more coherent by a mile. It's longer, and its group songwriting blends better. Its beautifully constructed first song, "Hey Chicken," sung by Mr. Tweedy, sounds like a reborn 45-r.p.m. single, doing nicely on rock radio in 1976: it's a series of riffs, a stodgy tempo, two lead-guitar lines harmonizing a third apart, a tambourine, and Mr. Tweedy's sneering, raspy voice instructing an ex-friend to get over himself. (The video, uploaded on YouTube.com a month ago, is a minor masterpiece: it arranges battle sequences from "Power Rangers," the early-80's Japanese children's television series, with displays of color-coded superheroes flying through the air balletically, loosely in sync to the song's downbeats.)
Barely five minutes into the new Kenny Rogers album, the guy starts singing about swastikas.
