Among Jon Langford’s cowboy portraits, he has a few of Hank as Saint Sebastian – shirtless, bound, and run through with arrows. Hank is the Hillbilly Shakespeare and the Godhead for  previous generations of country music. I’ve heard him described as the sin-eater for southern whites, his self-destruction saving others from themselves, if that’s how it actually works.

But Hank doesn’t get enough credit as a psychiatric diagnostician. On social media it’s standard now to diagnose one’s ex as having either borderline or narcissistic personality disorder. Hank specialized in the detailed illustration of the borderline and narcissistic personality structures dyad, a relationship where two terribly broken plates fit together perfectly until one or both shatters.

Listen to “First Year Blues” for proof.

Hank Williams was the Redneck Sigmund Freud.