Four years later, the man novelist Stephen King has called "the truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation" is back with a new album (Just Us Kids, Lightning Rod Records) that finds him skewering Bush and company with even more fervor but with the same eloquent terseness. We caught up with McMurtry after a recent rehearsal as he and his band, The Heartless Bastards, prepared to head east on their latest tour. He shared his thoughts on the process of songwriting, the drudgery of touring and the reason why Leonard Cohen must die.

We know you're originally from Fort Worth, Texas, but you now live in the Austin, right?
Yeah, I was born in Fort Worth, but I spent very little time there. I moved when I was about seven years old.

Are you a local celebrity there? Do you get recognized a lot?
Yeah, it's become so in recent years.

How do you feel about that?
Well, I guess it means I'm doing my job.

Before we get to the new album, we're required by law to ask you at least one question about your father (Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winner Larry McMurtry). Are you able to enjoy and appreciate each other's work?
Yeah, definitely. I grew up with him. My folks divorced when I was about seven. We all wound up in Virginia in different parts of the state. I lived with my dad, so I learned to get along with him pretty good.

When it comes to your songwriting, you said that you're not so much an artist as a mythbreaker. Could you explain that?
I don't remember saying that, but it is something I try to do. I was always in sort of a quandary when I did those Farm Aid shows because what I never hear anybody writing about is just how much drudgery there is involved in farming. I tend to look at the dark cloud behind the silver lining. Farmwork involves hours and hours of hard work and lots of debt and that sort of thing.

When it comes to your actual songwriting process, how do you do it? Do you set aside some time and say, "Okay, I have to start writing some songs" or do you just get hit with an idea?
I have a scrap pile that I work from. If I hear a line in my head that I like, I try to get it on the hard disk somewhere so I don't lose it. Then when it comes time to make a record, I usually book some recording time, then I have a deadline to finish these things, and whichever songs get finished are the ones that get on the record.

The new album, Just Us Kids, might be your most ambitious work musically. The music is quite textured and complex. Do you chalk that up to good producing?
Well, I try things and some of them work.

You say this isn't a political album, but the political criticism you level seems even more pointed and direct than on Childish Things. Has your anger with this current administration increased in the past few years?
I don't know. I don't remember how mad I was [in 2004]. I'm pretty mad now, but I can't lay it all on them because we let that happen. We let them get in power.

This album will probably expand the use of the "activist" label that we so often see attached to your name these days. How comfortable are you with that label?
It's okay. I just think more people need to be activists in some form or another. We got in the mess we're in now because not enough of us were activists, myself included. I stayed out of the parade. I thought the political scene within the states was gonna stay within the realm of normalcy and that Ronald Reagan was as crazy as it was ever gonna get. I never thought I'd miss that guy.

You got some hate mail in response to your 2004 hit "We Can't Make It Here." Are you ready for more of that with this album, or do you think that kind of reaction is pretty much played out?
Oh no, I'm getting more of that now.

Already?
Yeah. Part of it is that a lot of people misinterpret "Cheney's Toy." They seem to think that I'm saying that the soldier is Cheney's toy. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying Bush is Cheney's toy.

You seem to make that pretty clear in the song.
Well, I thought I left enough clues in there, like "stay the course" and "daddy's boy" and "bring 'em on." A lot of people just don't read the newspaper. Even the lyric "You're the man." That was reported early on that that's what Cheney tells Bush to keep his ego inflated. "You're the man," you know? He's not at all. He's just the salesman. These are Cheney's policies Bush is selling. They're not his.

Is it even tougher having this type of political stance while living in Texas?
It's not tough living in Austin at all. Austin's a little blue dot in a sea of red. But we got a lot of people moving in from Dallas and Houston, so it's becoming more like the rest of Texas. But it's still enough of a liberal enclave that you don't really feel it here.

So you won't be needing to move to any East Coast city any time soon?
I don't think so. It'd have to be somewhere in the middle [of the country]. It's a lot easier to tour from the middle.

Let's get back to the new album. How do you get the likes of Ian McLagan and pat mAcdonald to play for you?
You call 'em. Mac lives right outside of town here. I see him around town all the time. Pat opened a couple of shows for us and we just really liked him. I had his number so we called him. It turned out he still had a storage locker left over here from the "Timbuk3" days, and he came down to empty it out, so while he was here we corralled him into playing on the record.

In two different song titles on your new album, you wish death upon pat mAcdonald and Leonard Cohen. So please tell us, why must they die?
"You'd a' Thought" was one of the first songs we recorded, and it reminded me of Leonard Cohen a bit. I was writing the song while I was supposed to be recording it, so everybody was sitting around waiting on me to come in, and finally I got there and I said, "Well, if it wasn't for Leonard Cohen, you wouldn't have had to wait so long." So that became the running joke. And "God Bless America" was done in pat mAcdonald's tuning. He does this Drop C tuning that's really cool. So we put "(Pat mAcdonald must die)" on that one. There were three or four other "must dies" that didn't make it onto the album.