D-FOB-Bheener 29 JAY FARRAR If ever there were a spokesperson for ...

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JAY FARRAR If ever there were a spokesperson for blue-collar America, it's Jay Farrar. The singer-songwriter of Uncle Tupelo fame has made a living singing about hardscrabble towns, joblessness and factory life. His songbook reads like a John Edwards speech, minus the upbeat delivery.

Indeed, Farrar—the reluctant figurehead of rock-country—has joined the anti-Bush chorus. His latest album, Stone Steel & Bright Lights, does not directly mention outsourcing or tax cuts or toppling Saddam, but within its lyrics are some of the best-written broadsides against the current White House. Nothing polemical like Steve Earle's "Johnny Walker Blues." More subdued, polished, prosy.

"I always feel like if a political viewpoint can be put in a song where it's not hitting people over the head, I think it's most effective," the former frontman of Son Volt said in a recent phone interview. "I'm averse to becoming a stump speaker."

That's an understatement. Farrar is not a musical activist in the mold of Guthrie or Dylan or Earle. On stage he rarely looks up, except to mumble the obligatory thanks. He eschews the spotlight and accoutrements of celebrity (however minor). Yet he approaches his music not unlike Edwards might a stump speech: by appealing to the downtrodden, playing masterfully with language and drawing inspiration from life experience. Of course, the deliverymen could not be more different. Farrar, 37, is a goateed, grim-faced loner, not a preacher—a man of many songs, but few words.

Though his latest album will probably garner scant attention outside his circle of fans, Farrar's melding of music and politics cannot hurt his career, which, in terms of album sales, has been on the decline. He says the shift wasn't motivated by sales so much as being on the road and taking in the news.

"I happened to be reading the paper a lot, and [was] consumed by what was happening at the time," he said. The war in Iraq was underway, something he was against.

Whereas Farrar's lyrics on previous albums captured the essence of rural life between the coasts, on Bright Lights he opts instead for larger themes and world events. Over the gentle squeal of a slide guitar, he sings: "A dynasty in power/two wars to their name/an election by decree/ain't this new world a shame."

He continues: "Revolution set the course straight/it was necessary then and it's necessary now/corruption in the system/a grassroots insurrection will bring them down."

Asked why his red-state neighbors vote overwhelmingly Republican, the Belleville native responded: "I had a van driver in Denmark once who had this belt buckle that read 'God, guns and guts,' which symbolizes what a lot of people think around here."

Farrar plays Celebrate Brooklyn on Sat.,          July 24 at Prospect Park Bandshell, 9th    St. (Prospect Park W.), 718-855-7882,       7:30, $3 sugg. don.