The band got its name because, Deisler explained, "I think it was a slang term I'd heard my grandmother use to describe gentlemen of easy virtue who hung around in bars.

Card's lyrics often rely on clever word plays, double entendres, and off-beat but sometimes poignant narratives about ordinary life.

A recurring theme is the inanity of country music clichés, for example the "we were happier when we were poor" trope exaggerated into absurdity in "Love in a Refrigerator Box".

Deisler's lyrics also marry comedy with a remarkably dark vision of humanity and its future (Example: Bonfire of the Inanities).

The songs they wrote tended to be humorous in an extremely off-beat way, in addition to their political nature, in a way reminiscent of Country Joe McDonald's "Fixing to Die Rag".