“We were going for, ‘A bad east Texas high school marching band hanging out with Funkadelic at Captain Beefheart’s house.'” This is how guitarist/vocalist Andrew Trube explains the myriad influences that Texas duo Greyhounds put into their swinging blue-funk. Pretty accurate, to be perfectly honest. There is a specific brand of erratic, wide eyed gusto endemic to the duo’s music that is perfectly exhibited in their track “Gettin Out Alive.”

From the shoo-bops to the horn breaks to the repeated mantras and blues riffs, “Gettin Out Alive” is a cosmic trip through history, both holistic and personal. The bleak song title is a tribute to Trube’s great grandmother, who lived in a poor neighborhood when Trube was just a kid. “Her name was Alie Mae Watson. She taught me piano,” he recounts via email.

The song itself is testament to the titular ethos. By exploring various genres and plumbing emotional highs and lows throughout the duration of the track, you almost feel like the narrators are throwing everything at the wall, experimenting with new ways to get by. Even while you are grooving along to the track, your skin thickens a little bit. His great grandmother would be proud.

“Just living for the right thing,” Trube sings at the beginning of the track. Aren’t we all.

Image Credit: Ardent Music

Matt Grosinger is the music editor of Nerdist. You can follow his often existentially probing tweets right here.