Very few people would qualify this as Americana and that is their loss for this is not only Americana, it's about as good as Americana gets. Sometimes "Americana" can feel like the genre for people who love country music but hate its fans.
Which brings me to John Mellencamp. If you were alive in the 1980s you will remember that he became the lightning rod for music fans who loved traditional American music but hated traditional America. Ironically, he was seen as an inauthentic Bruce Springsteen wannabee. Why is that ironic? This is why: “Standing before you is a man who has become wildly and absurdly
successful writing about something about which he has had absolutely no
personal experience,” Bruce Springsteen. Mellencamp, on the other hand, was the real thing and he wrote about a life he had real experience of such as, "A little ditty about Jack and Diane, two American kids growin' up in the heartland."
Later, Mellencamp would claim that the song was really about an inter-racial couple. That might be true but I don't believe it. I think that was what he said when he finally gained some respect from the cool kids who used to hate him. Ultimately, it doesn't matter because a song only succeeds to the extent that you can apply it to your life. That means both people in the interracial couple and the same race couple have to be able to imagine its about them.
Or, to be more accurate, that it is about the person they used to be because the whole thing is hindsight. It's about having grown up too fast.
Which brings me to Kenny Chesney, who was 14 years old the summer Jack and Diane was on top. You couldn't avoid it that summer. Chesney didn't write "American Kids" but it speaks to that experience. It's a song that says, we were that generation and we turned out okay. Which generation exactly? It probably doesn't matter. Any generation from back then.
There are two John Mellencamp shout-outs in the song. There is the title and the line, "Growin' up in little pink houses, makin' out on living room couches." Kant famously said that he understood Plato better than Plato understood himself, Chesney can make the same claim about Mellencamp.
Showing posts with label Americana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Americana. Show all posts
Sunday, March 1, 2020
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Americana: Gentle on My Mind
John Hartford was born in New York City. You might be forgiven for thinking otherwise after watching that video. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, though, and says his musical tastes where formed by listening to Earl Scruggs.
Through a series of connections that I won't bother making that brings up the thorny issue of origins. There is a whole lot that might be said but I think the important thing is this: neither Earl Scruggs nor John Hartford were folk musicians although both are folky.
For the record, I think folk is all fakesong. There is no such thing. Fake or not, tough, there are people who think they are folk. Not Hartford; there is something, well, something what? It's not authenticity. Everything about that performance is scripted, including the folksiness. It starts with the dialogue, as if they hadn't decided what song to do next.
Hartford wrote "Gentle on my mind" after seeing Dr. Zhivago. He said it wasn't anything particular about the movie. It just gave him a feeling and he wrote the song. He was asked about the song over and over again for the rest of his life and, God bless him, was always gracious about answering questions he must have heard a hundred times before. In one of those turns he said the movie gave him a "lonesome, traveling feeling".
That was a rather convenient thing for a man about to write a bluegrass song to have for lonesome feelings is something bluegrass is rather good at.
But there is something new too. Something you can hear in these lines,
And it's knowing I'm not shackledWhoever she was, she gave him sex without marriage. Not just once but lots of it. But he's long gone now. And no matter how bluegrass "Gentle on my mind" is, Bill Monroe wouldn't have sung that.
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that are dried upon some line
The important thing about the song is that it's not a song about the woman. It's a male fantasy. Not a sex fantasy, although there is sex in it. There are a lot of songs like that. The thing that tells you it's fantasy is the line about the sleeping bag stashed behind your couch. What, she doesn't have a bed?
Funny thing about it, and my last thought for today, is that the song works better when women sing it. There is an interesting challenge when a woman sings a song written for a man or vice versa. The challenge is how much do you reverse? Consider these four lines:
Though the wheat fields and the clothes linesThe obvious thing to do is to change the last two lines to,
And the junkyards and the highways come between us
And some other woman's cryin' to her mother
'Cause she turned and I was gone
And some other man is cryin' to his motherKrauss doesn't do that even though she fully assumes the narrator's role in the song. The temptation is to say it's morally more acceptable because it's no longer some guy bragging about all the women he's had along the road but I don't think that works. It's something else. The song is still a male fantasy that Krauss validates by assuring us she remembers us fondly even though ... . The important thing about the song is that it's about an experience, an American experience. And that is where Americana starts.
'Cause he turned and I was gone
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Americana: Why not Canadiana?
A fairly obvious question, and therefore one I should deal with sooner or later, is why I, a Canadian, am so interested in Americana? Why not Canadiana? There is a such a word, although it doesn't have much "content". The Wikipedia entry on the subject is just a stub.
The short answer is simply that, like most Canadians, I've always found Americana much more interesting. The longer answer is more complicated.
A good place to start the longer answer is to point at an column by David Solway called "Canada: A Dead Country Walking". It's an incoherent little piece in that it begins by saying that Canada never really has had a core identity and then concludes that bad people are tearing apart that core identity; you know, the one that doesn't actually exist in the first place. And then Solway goes on to laud Pierre Trudeau for having invoked the War Measures Act to crush a terrorist movement in 1970s, lamenting that Pierre's son Justin, "has neither the political smarts nor the strength of character to act decisively against those who are busy reducing an already patchwork country into a heap of shards and rubble." And that tells you a lot—that Pierre Trudeau gets lauded as a great defender of a national identity that doesn't exist because he used brutal and dictatorial methods to do so. That, my friends, is what insecurity looks like.
Twenty-four years ago, then Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard stirred up a hornet's nest in the rest of Canada by saying, “Canada is divisible because Canada is not a real country.” The anger wasn't at the "divisible" part of the claim. Very few Canadians even noted it at the time and even those who remember the incident now tend to misquote Bouchard, thinking that he only said "Canada is not a real country." And it takes very little effort to understand why—and Solway makes the point at some length—Canada is divisible in a way that the USA is not. The point neither he nor anyone else seems to be able to make is why it should not be.
Ultimately, of course, the USA is divisible. Any country can be dismembered and that is probably the inevitable fate of all countries eventually. The problem with Canada is that there is nothing approaching the sort of argument Lincoln made for the union in Canada's case. Lincoln could, and did, argue that breaking up the union would have meant the destruction of a founding idea, conceived in Liberty, that all men are created equal. Canada was created as an exercise of power and, in the end, whether Canada holds together is a simple question of power.
More than that, the USA was created by people who understood that power was a problem. They understood that power dispensed to a bureaucracy to administer a law such as the Stamp Act would create a faction that had an active interest in destroying liberty for that faction's continued existence would defend absolutely not only on its holding onto to that power but on the continual extension of that power. Sir John A. Macdonald, on the other hand, pursued confederation precisely so he could get his hands on that power—the control of patronage appointments. That, and not any identity or any set of beliefs about the dignity of human beings created by God, is the principle upon which Canada is founded. There were people who had different ideas about what Canada might be founded on but it was Macdonald and his lust for power that won out.
As Solway grudgingly notes, there is a Québecois identity. It's an identity whose future is uncertain but it exists and if one wanted to put together a list of "Quebecana" it would be ridiculously easy to do. You could do likewise with Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Alberta albeit in a way that would seem piddle compared to the rich cultural identity of the USA and Quebec. You should be able to do it with Ontario, New Brunswick and British Columbia, although in an even more reduced form, because most residents of those provinces have been taught to hate the their cultural heritage.
And here's the really telling thing: the USA is a much more diverse country, culturally speaking, than Canada is. The claim I'm making here is not that Canada isn't diverse but rather that diversity pales compared to what you see in the USA.
There is a sense in which Bouchard's claim is ludicrous. Of course Canada is a real country. The problem arises when you start to find something real beyond the fact that it's a government that has a country. If you go looking for Canadiana, you'll find some, but it's pretty thin gruel.
The short answer is simply that, like most Canadians, I've always found Americana much more interesting. The longer answer is more complicated.
A good place to start the longer answer is to point at an column by David Solway called "Canada: A Dead Country Walking". It's an incoherent little piece in that it begins by saying that Canada never really has had a core identity and then concludes that bad people are tearing apart that core identity; you know, the one that doesn't actually exist in the first place. And then Solway goes on to laud Pierre Trudeau for having invoked the War Measures Act to crush a terrorist movement in 1970s, lamenting that Pierre's son Justin, "has neither the political smarts nor the strength of character to act decisively against those who are busy reducing an already patchwork country into a heap of shards and rubble." And that tells you a lot—that Pierre Trudeau gets lauded as a great defender of a national identity that doesn't exist because he used brutal and dictatorial methods to do so. That, my friends, is what insecurity looks like.
Twenty-four years ago, then Premier of Quebec Lucien Bouchard stirred up a hornet's nest in the rest of Canada by saying, “Canada is divisible because Canada is not a real country.” The anger wasn't at the "divisible" part of the claim. Very few Canadians even noted it at the time and even those who remember the incident now tend to misquote Bouchard, thinking that he only said "Canada is not a real country." And it takes very little effort to understand why—and Solway makes the point at some length—Canada is divisible in a way that the USA is not. The point neither he nor anyone else seems to be able to make is why it should not be.
Ultimately, of course, the USA is divisible. Any country can be dismembered and that is probably the inevitable fate of all countries eventually. The problem with Canada is that there is nothing approaching the sort of argument Lincoln made for the union in Canada's case. Lincoln could, and did, argue that breaking up the union would have meant the destruction of a founding idea, conceived in Liberty, that all men are created equal. Canada was created as an exercise of power and, in the end, whether Canada holds together is a simple question of power.
More than that, the USA was created by people who understood that power was a problem. They understood that power dispensed to a bureaucracy to administer a law such as the Stamp Act would create a faction that had an active interest in destroying liberty for that faction's continued existence would defend absolutely not only on its holding onto to that power but on the continual extension of that power. Sir John A. Macdonald, on the other hand, pursued confederation precisely so he could get his hands on that power—the control of patronage appointments. That, and not any identity or any set of beliefs about the dignity of human beings created by God, is the principle upon which Canada is founded. There were people who had different ideas about what Canada might be founded on but it was Macdonald and his lust for power that won out.
As Solway grudgingly notes, there is a Québecois identity. It's an identity whose future is uncertain but it exists and if one wanted to put together a list of "Quebecana" it would be ridiculously easy to do. You could do likewise with Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Alberta albeit in a way that would seem piddle compared to the rich cultural identity of the USA and Quebec. You should be able to do it with Ontario, New Brunswick and British Columbia, although in an even more reduced form, because most residents of those provinces have been taught to hate the their cultural heritage.
And here's the really telling thing: the USA is a much more diverse country, culturally speaking, than Canada is. The claim I'm making here is not that Canada isn't diverse but rather that diversity pales compared to what you see in the USA.
There is a sense in which Bouchard's claim is ludicrous. Of course Canada is a real country. The problem arises when you start to find something real beyond the fact that it's a government that has a country. If you go looking for Canadiana, you'll find some, but it's pretty thin gruel.
Monday, February 24, 2020
My Americana
This is the only Lyle Lovett song I listen to much anymore.
That's not particularly notable for anyone but me.
I used to listen to Lyle all the time. In the late 1980s he was my guy. In retrospect, it isn't hard to figure out why.
I grew up in New Brunswick. The local radio station played rock and roll for only two hours a day—between 8 and 10 pm. And that was only six days a week. On Sunday night we got Billy Graham from 8 til 9 and no rock music at all. The rest of the time they played country.
I loved rock and roll at the time. Every Sunday I'd go through the same deception. I'd get into my bedroom and pull out my Holiday 8 Transistor radio and turn it on expecting the music I craved and get Billy Graham instead. Here's the thing, though, I never turned off Billy Graham. And every year I'd watch the Daytona 500. I was a hard core Richard Petty fan. And I listened to the country music that played all the time. I loved Buck Owens.
I had good instincts as a kid. Later, when I was in Ottawa to go to university, I listened to the music all my friends professed to like—mostly David Bowie, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, B52s and The Clash—but I also loved the music I grew up on. There was rock music that was partly or largely disguised country music such as the Rolling Stones, The Band and John Mellencamp. There was also country music it was respectable to like: I had a copy of Ray Charles's Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music which all my friends at least tolerated; to do otherwise would have been "raaaacist". The same album by a white artist they would have despised.
And then came Lyle. The great thing about Lyle was the irony. It was country but it really wasn't. His tongue was always in his cheek. And I loved that.
Only I can't listen to it much anymore. The song above is an exception. There is no irony in it. It tells a story that a lot of men (and not a few women) can identify with. What it feels like when the woman you love and who still loves you wants out and nothing is going to change her mind. It's a straightforward story this song tells. It's not simple—a lot of artistry went into this song. But a lot of artistry went into almost everything Lyle did. For me, in any case, most of what he did hasn't aged well.
Joshua Judges Ruth, the album this song came from was the last Lyle Lovett album I ever bought. I didn't consciously reject him. He just no longer captured my imagination after that. It was just time to move on.
I said at the top that it isn't hard to figure out why Lyle was my guy. The reason is that he gave me an excuse to love the music I had always loved but was ashamed to admit in front of the cool kids. Lyle was not-really-but-kinda-sorta country. Over time, it was precisely that irony that became troublesome. Looking back, it's interesting (for me) to notice that I started to get tired of the irony in the early 1990s—that is to say years before 9/11.
And I can understand why that happened. I had just gotten out of a relationship that had been about fun but, as so often happens, had come to be love. And there are few things more damaging to the soul than to fall deeply in love with the wrong woman. I got out of that and into a relationship with a woman who valued the same things I did. One of the ironies (in the historical sense of the word this time) was that the friend who invited me to the occasion where I met Amy had done so with some trepidation because she worried that Amy and I would hate one another. Nora figured that I'd fit in with everyone else who'd be present but was worried that Amy and I would immediately clash and ruin everything for everyone. It didn't happen.
It was my fault that Nora thought that. I'd been lying about myself for years. Not surprisingly, my friends had started to believe my lies because, no matter how odious the source for this maxim, it is true that a lie constantly repeated tends to get accepted. Even by me. After 12 years of lying to myself and everyone else about who I was, I was finally ready to be honest.
Anyway, enough rambling. This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts about Americana because Americana played a huge role in defining me. That's a troublesome statement because neither term—both "Americana" and "me"—is terribly well defined. I don't expect anyone else to care about me but others might be interested in the Americana issue.
That's not particularly notable for anyone but me.
I used to listen to Lyle all the time. In the late 1980s he was my guy. In retrospect, it isn't hard to figure out why.
I grew up in New Brunswick. The local radio station played rock and roll for only two hours a day—between 8 and 10 pm. And that was only six days a week. On Sunday night we got Billy Graham from 8 til 9 and no rock music at all. The rest of the time they played country.
I loved rock and roll at the time. Every Sunday I'd go through the same deception. I'd get into my bedroom and pull out my Holiday 8 Transistor radio and turn it on expecting the music I craved and get Billy Graham instead. Here's the thing, though, I never turned off Billy Graham. And every year I'd watch the Daytona 500. I was a hard core Richard Petty fan. And I listened to the country music that played all the time. I loved Buck Owens.
I had good instincts as a kid. Later, when I was in Ottawa to go to university, I listened to the music all my friends professed to like—mostly David Bowie, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, B52s and The Clash—but I also loved the music I grew up on. There was rock music that was partly or largely disguised country music such as the Rolling Stones, The Band and John Mellencamp. There was also country music it was respectable to like: I had a copy of Ray Charles's Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music which all my friends at least tolerated; to do otherwise would have been "raaaacist". The same album by a white artist they would have despised.
And then came Lyle. The great thing about Lyle was the irony. It was country but it really wasn't. His tongue was always in his cheek. And I loved that.
Only I can't listen to it much anymore. The song above is an exception. There is no irony in it. It tells a story that a lot of men (and not a few women) can identify with. What it feels like when the woman you love and who still loves you wants out and nothing is going to change her mind. It's a straightforward story this song tells. It's not simple—a lot of artistry went into this song. But a lot of artistry went into almost everything Lyle did. For me, in any case, most of what he did hasn't aged well.
Joshua Judges Ruth, the album this song came from was the last Lyle Lovett album I ever bought. I didn't consciously reject him. He just no longer captured my imagination after that. It was just time to move on.
I said at the top that it isn't hard to figure out why Lyle was my guy. The reason is that he gave me an excuse to love the music I had always loved but was ashamed to admit in front of the cool kids. Lyle was not-really-but-kinda-sorta country. Over time, it was precisely that irony that became troublesome. Looking back, it's interesting (for me) to notice that I started to get tired of the irony in the early 1990s—that is to say years before 9/11.
And I can understand why that happened. I had just gotten out of a relationship that had been about fun but, as so often happens, had come to be love. And there are few things more damaging to the soul than to fall deeply in love with the wrong woman. I got out of that and into a relationship with a woman who valued the same things I did. One of the ironies (in the historical sense of the word this time) was that the friend who invited me to the occasion where I met Amy had done so with some trepidation because she worried that Amy and I would hate one another. Nora figured that I'd fit in with everyone else who'd be present but was worried that Amy and I would immediately clash and ruin everything for everyone. It didn't happen.
It was my fault that Nora thought that. I'd been lying about myself for years. Not surprisingly, my friends had started to believe my lies because, no matter how odious the source for this maxim, it is true that a lie constantly repeated tends to get accepted. Even by me. After 12 years of lying to myself and everyone else about who I was, I was finally ready to be honest.
Anyway, enough rambling. This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts about Americana because Americana played a huge role in defining me. That's a troublesome statement because neither term—both "Americana" and "me"—is terribly well defined. I don't expect anyone else to care about me but others might be interested in the Americana issue.
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