--- title: David Allan Coe description: Discover the life and music of David Allan Coe, the outlaw country singer who wrote Take This Job and Shove It and challenged Nashville convention. canonical_url: https://marktheday.info/david-allan-coe language: en-GB date: 2026-09-05T17:20:37Z notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://marktheday.info/david-allan-coe. Schema.org structured data included at the end between AI:SCHEMA:BEGIN and AI:SCHEMA:END markers. markdown-tokens: 2961 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://marktheday.info/david-allan-coe. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Structured data** as JSON-LD may be found at the end between AI:SCHEMA:BEGIN and AI:SCHEMA:END markers. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. David Allan Coe was born on September 6, 1939, in Akron, Ohio. Long before Nashville knew his name, Coe had accumulated the sort of biography that country singers usually had to invent after becoming famous. His childhood was troubled, and from a young age he spent considerable periods in reform schools and correctional institutions. By his own account, much of his youth and early adulthood was spent behind bars. The experience became inseparable from the image he later carried into country music, although some of the more spectacular stories Coe told about his prison years have never been independently substantiated. Music offered Coe a way out—or at least a considerably more enjoyable form of trouble. He began writing songs while incarcerated and, after his release in the 1960s, headed for Nashville. Breaking into the music business is difficult under the best circumstances. Coe's solution reportedly included living in his car and parking himself near the Ryman Auditorium in hopes that somebody important would eventually notice him. It wasn't exactly a carefully prepared corporate career strategy, but then very little about David Allan Coe ever was. His first album, Penitentiary Blues, appeared in 1969 and reflected both his prison experiences and his early interest in blues and R&B. It was followed by Requiem for a Harlequin in 1973. Neither made him a major star, but Coe was beginning to demonstrate something Nashville could not ignore for long: he could write songs. One of the first major demonstrations came when Tanya Tucker recorded Coe's “Would You Lay with Me (In a Field of Stone).” Her version became a major country hit and established Coe as a songwriter capable of producing far more than tales about prisons, motorcycles and drinking. Beneath the outlaw persona was a writer with a strong understanding of vulnerability, loneliness, devotion and regret—the essential ingredients from which country music has been making perfectly good misery for generations. Coe signed with Columbia Records during the 1970s and developed one of the most unmistakable images in country music. For a time he appeared as the “Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy,” complete with elaborate rhinestone clothing and a mask. Country music has never exactly been frightened of sequins, but Coe managed to make rhinestones look vaguely threatening. His breakthrough as a recording artist came with “You Never Even Called Me by My Name,” written by Steve Goodman and famously associated with the idea of creating the perfect country-and-western song. Coe's 1975 recording became one of his signature performances and remains perhaps the song most immediately associated with him. Its mixture of parody, storytelling and traditional country ingredients suited Coe perfectly. A song that could laugh at country music while simultaneously celebrating it was right in his wheelhouse. During the height of the outlaw country movement, Coe increasingly found himself associated with performers such as Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. Songs including “Longhaired Redneck” and “Willie, Waylon and Me” reinforced that position. Yet Coe was never particularly comfortable simply being placed inside somebody else's movement. He wanted recognition as an outlaw in his own right—and preferably recognition delivered loudly enough that nobody could miss it. One of his greatest contributions to country music was a song he didn't make famous himself. Coe wrote “Take This Job and Shove It,” which Johnny Paycheck recorded in 1977. Paycheck's version reached number one on the country chart and turned its title into a phrase understood by generations of disgruntled employees. Few songwriters have given civilization a more useful sentence for approximately 4:58 on a Friday afternoon. Coe was reportedly irritated that many listeners assumed Paycheck had written the song. The record itself credited Coe, but once a song becomes that closely identified with the singer performing it, public perception can be difficult to correct. Coe later recorded the song himself and even released “Take This Job and Shove It Too,” making his feelings on the matter rather difficult to misunderstand. His recording career continued through the late 1970s and into the 1980s. In 1983, “The Ride,” written by Gary Gentry and J.B. Detterline Jr., became one of Coe's biggest hits. The wonderfully atmospheric song tells of a hitchhiking musician who accepts a ride from a mysterious driver who ultimately reveals himself to be the ghost of Hank Williams. It reached No. 4 on the country chart and became another enduring Coe favorite. The following year brought “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile.” Written by Johnny Cunningham and recorded by Coe, the ballad reached No. 2 on Billboard's country chart, making it Coe's highest-charting single as a performer. It also demonstrated an important part of his musical personality that could easily disappear beneath the tattoos and bravado. Coe could sing a tender country ballad with considerable emotional weight. Another song strongly associated with Coe is “Tennessee Whiskey.” Written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, it was first recorded by David Allan Coe in 1981. George Jones later recorded it, and decades afterward Chris Stapleton transformed the composition into an enormous modern country hit. Coe did not write the song, but his early recording forms an important chapter in the history of a composition that eventually became a country standard. Coe also ventured onto the screen. He appeared in the 1981 film Take This Job and Shove It, inspired by the song he had written, and later appeared in television productions including The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James and Stagecoach. His acting career never threatened to replace his music, although a man with Coe's appearance and reputation rarely needed much assistance convincing an audience that an outlaw had entered the room. His later career also wandered into unexpected musical territory. Coe became friends with Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott and collaborated with Abbott, Vinnie Paul and Rex Brown on music combining country and heavy metal. The project eventually appeared as Rebel Meets Rebel in 2006, after Dimebag Darrell's death. On paper, David Allan Coe and members of Pantera might sound like musicians from different planets. In practice, their mutual enthusiasm for loud music and refusing to behave made the partnership considerably less surprising. Any account of David Allan Coe also has to address controversy. Some recordings he privately released contained extremely offensive racial and sexual material. Those albums followed him throughout his career and generated accusations of racism and misogyny, accusations Coe repeatedly denied. They remain part of his legacy and make any attempt to reduce him to a lovable, harmless country outlaw misleading. Coe could be provocative, offensive and deliberately confrontational, sometimes apparently regarding public outrage as proof that he had successfully completed the day's work. Separating fact from mythology is another difficulty. Coe told extraordinary stories about his life, and not all of them withstand historical scrutiny. Tales involving prison killings, death row and other adventures became intertwined with his public identity. Some were repeated so frequently that they became accepted as biography despite lacking reliable evidence. David Allan Coe wasn't merely the subject of legends; he was sometimes an enthusiastic participant in manufacturing them. Yet focusing exclusively on the controversies can obscure why Coe remained important to country music for so long. He was an accomplished songwriter with an unusual ability to move between sentimentality, humor, anger and traditional honky-tonk storytelling. His catalogue includes songs he wrote for himself, songs made famous by others and performances of compositions by other writers that became inseparable from his voice. Coe continued performing for decades, maintaining a devoted following even after mainstream country radio largely moved on. His appearance changed dramatically over the years—long hair, extensive tattoos, braided beard and eventually dreadlocks—but the outlaw identity remained. Trends came and went around him while Coe continued doing essentially what he had always done: playing music his way and apparently regarding anyone who objected as someone else's problem. His life also included serious setbacks. Financial problems and disputes over publishing rights complicated his later years, while a severe traffic accident in 2013 left him with significant injuries. Even that did not keep him away from performing for long. By then, the road was not simply where David Allan Coe worked; it had become an essential part of who he was. David Allan Coe died in Dallas, Texas, on April 29, 2026, at the age of 86. His death closed one of the more extraordinary chapters in outlaw country history. He left behind a musical career spanning decades and a catalogue that includes “Longhaired Redneck,” “You Never Even Called Me by My Name,” “The Ride,” “Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile” and numerous other recordings, along with compositions such as “Take This Job and Shove It” and “Would You Lay with Me (In a Field of Stone).” David Allan Coe was never an easy artist to summarize, which was probably exactly how he preferred it. He could be thoughtful and outrageous, sentimental and confrontational, enormously talented and spectacularly self-destructive. His reputation sometimes overshadowed his music, but the best of that music explains why his name remained part of the outlaw country conversation for more than half a century. Plenty of singers have worn cowboy hats and called themselves rebels. 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