Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1 - #118
Guest Post by Paul Wilner + "Jack of All Trades" by midwxst - 04/30/21
Proud to announce that the Shuffle got its first press. Or at least I think it’s press ? Something from convertkit.com describing how the concept is an example for others to reflect on for starting their own newsletters. Check it out!
Today we have a guest post by a reader of the Shuffle, Paul Wilner!
Paul’s a writer, a critic, a teacher, and an education administrator. An editor of "Night Running,'' a collection of essays published by Wellstone Books, he’s also the former longtime editor of the San Francisco Examiner Magazine and the San Francisco Chronicle Style section. Devout follower of politics, pop culture, and poetry, and member of the National Book Critics Circle, he’s written for the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Barnes and Noble Review, and Zzyva magazine.
Welcome, Paul! Take it away ;)
Bob Dylan said it (of course): A poem is a naked person.
The thing I like about country music is the obvious: the connection,
lack of pretension. They call it three chords and the truth for a
reason. (Maybe it has something to do with punk rock that way, who
knows).
One of my favorites is this one:
"Trying To Be A Man'' by Will Hoge
It's a ballad about a shitkicker who gets his girlfriend knocked up,
marries her. When she dies in childbirth, he does his best to raise
their son. Cliche central, right, except it isn't.
Here are the lyrics, in their entirety. (Like most songs, it doesn't
have the full impact unless you listen to the sound.)
One night I fell in love with a little girl
And I gave her my whole world
I knew right then that I never give it back
And I wonder how I fell for that
Five months latter with tears in both her eyes
She handed me those two pink lines
The only test in my whole life I didn’t fail
I told her we’d be fine but I was scared as hell
Whoa my love I hope it doesn’t show
But I’m scared to death of drowning in these things that I don’t know
Whoa my love I hope you understand
Truth is I’m a boy trying to be a man
I got a hand me down gold ring to make it right
and I could feel you kick when the judge said kiss the bride
But your ma and me we walked out hand in hand
Soon three against the world we’ll make a stand
But on the day that you were born she got called home
It’s the darkest thing my heart has ever known
Doctor said I’m sorry and handed you to me
I looked in your blue eyes and couldn’t even speak
Whoa my son I hope it doesn’t show
But I’m scared to death of drowning in these things that I don’t know
Whoa my son I hope you understand
Truth is I’m a boy trying to be a man
Your daddy’s just a boy trying to be a man
Will Hoge is a part of a new generation of country outlaws - a
different generation from when Kris Kristoffersen, Waylon Jennings and
Willie Nelson were doing their thing - but his work is in the same
spirit. Like his fellow alt-country balladeer Jason Isbell, he's also
very political, open in his dismay for the country music
"Establishment,'' such as it is, and attached to progressive ideals.
That's fine with me, I share them, but it somehow seems separate and
apart from the suffering soul that's at the heart of this genre. I
really shouldn't enjoy it as a certified former New Yorker, but it
speaks to me in ways that more mediated work doesn't.
It also reminds me of a very different tune from the late, great
George Jones. Like Merle Haggard, I see him as very much in this
tradition, too - a different breed than the slicker country sounds
that are out there, but that seems to be a binary distinction. In my
old age, I'm less inclined to judge, and it seems like these musicians
have more in common than not, even if they're involved in the usual
Oedipal struggles with their contemporaries and predecessors.
My favorite George Jones song "She Thinks I Still Care’
is about a woman he's loved, lost, and never forgotten. No one quite captures
those emotions like Jones, whose nickname was "The Possum'' (and "No
Show Jones,'' for his habit of not quite making it to the gig when he
was under the influence.)
These are the lyrics:
Just because I ask a friend about her
Just because I spoke her name somewhere
Just because I rang her number by mistake today
She thinks I still care
Just because I haunt the same old places
Where the memory of her lingers everywhere
Just because I'm not the happy guy I used to be
She thinks I still care
But if she's happy thinking I still need her
Then let that silly notion bring her cheer
Oh, how could she ever be so foolish?
Oh, where would she get such an idea?
Just because I ask a friend about her
Just because I spoke her name somewhere
Just because I saw her, then went all to pieces
She thinks I still care
She thinks I still care...Just because I ask a friend about her
Just because I spoke her name somewhere
Just because I rang her number by mistake today
She thinks I still care
Just because I haunt the same old places
Where the memory of her lingers everywhere
Just because I'm not the happy guy I used to be
She thinks I still care
But if she's happy thinking I still need her
Then let that silly notion bring her cheer
Oh, how could she ever be so foolish?
Oh, where would she get such an idea?
Just because I ask a friend about her
Just because I spoke her name somewhere
Just because I saw her, then went all to pieces
She thinks I still care
It has nothing, but maybe everything, to do with "Trying To Be A
Man.'' For better or worse, they're both an arrow to your heart.
Love this, Paul, thank you! I had never heard either of these, and it made me think of my own song today, a digicore jam by an artist hyper-pop music critic, Billy Bugara, calls “a generational talent.”
“Jack of All Trades” by midwxst
It feels like a synchronicity because I used to take enormous pride in my music knowledge. I felt like the “Jack of All Trades” in the way midwxst sings of it:
Jack of all trades, baby, you cannot match me.
And I would feel a smidge of annoyance when there was a song mentioned by someone that I didn’t know already.
Sometimes I would even lie and say I had heard things I hadn’t, LOL.
But now I love being introduced to music I don’t know.
As the Buddhists say, Beginner’s Mind!
And Paul’s two country songs are beautiful.
The first one makes me think of friend, reader, and writer Dan Marshall who just started a new Substack himself, which you should all check out, called Peter Pan Man Dan, in which he is describing his journey from a Peter Pan man-child to imminent fatherhood and becoming a real? man .
It’s really funny yet real, much like his memoir, Home Is Burning, about how he and his family humorously and poignantly made it through the death of their patriarch.
His most recent post is about the moment he and his wife got their pregnancy test results and it could be soundtracked by this Hoge verse:
She handed me those two pink lines
The only test in my whole life I didn’t fail
I told her we’d be fine but I was scared as hell
And I believe he’ll be writing a guest post for us in late May.
The George Jones song makes me think of how far I have come in the past year and a quarter in terms of processing my separation/divorce. And how thankful I’ve had this newsletter to do some of that work. LOL, Hopefully, that’s been okay with y’all ;)
This line stood out:
Just because I'm not the happy guy I used to be
It’s strange to say, but I am not the unhappy guy I used to be.
To quote Richard Rohr’s book The Universal Christ, which I read parts of last night:
(The Holocaust Jew) “Etty Hillesum is but one example of another function of the Christ: a universally available “voice” that calls all things to become whole and true to themselves. God’s two-main tools in this direction, from every appearance, seem to be great love and great suffering—and often great love that invariably leads to great suffering.”
I had a great love and then great suffering, but it has made me more whole and true to myself, and brought me closer to the ?
I think the ? is what I am now going to call God, the Universe, the Higher Power, the mystery, whatever you want to call it.
The Jones song also makes me think I am loving these guest posts because they move me away from repeating those divorce themes of the 1st quarter of this year’s posts.
So if you’re reading and interested in writing a guest post, please reach out at dave.m.cowen@gmail.com!
No need to be a “writer” or a know-it-all music fan.
This platform is for any and everyone!
Thanks again to Paul!
Have a great weekend, everyone ;)
Okay, that’s the one hundred and eighteenth Shuffle Synchronicities.