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sometimes you have to go back to the text.

charles joyner’s book shared traditions: southern history and folk tradition is an academic text that does not steal your soul. he’s a bit of an essentialist (i think i am too … too much postmodernism has made me sadder. make a claim. believe in it. let’s talk. let’s stop pretending there are so many meanings. there aren’t that many when you get right down to it. we’re just not that smart. or interesting. we’re fucking around and making things worse. enough already.)

he interviews old locals in a chapter about appalachian dulcimer makers called sweet music:

Stanley Hicks believed that people used to have more fun back then than they do know. “People were happier than they are now,” he said. They used to whistle or sing these old songs and ballads in the fields. And “if you didn’t have nothing to eat and another man had it they would divide it up.” A major part of the life of the people, he recalled, was looking forward to such festivals as corn shuckings. People would gather not only to shuck corn but also to play games, especially kissing games. “Sometimes they kissed too long,” he mused, somewhat wistfully. Thay had a good time that was for certain. Sometimes they would stay all night, drinking mooshine whiskey from stone jugs. “Dad used to make it.” And there was always music, banjos and fiddles mostly … “Young people don’t have anything to do. They get to messing with that dope. They git where they don’t care. And hit’s getting worse. But if they had music. Even if they couldn’t play it they could beat on it.”

six minutes for music.

Chamois cleaning all the windows,
Singing songs about Edith Piaf’s soul.
And I hear blue strains of “no regredior”
Across the street from Cathedral Notre Dame.

Meanwhile back in San Francisco
We’re trying hard to make this whole thing blend,
As we sit upon this jagged
Storey block, with you my friend.

And it’s a long way to Buffalo.
It’s a long way to Belfast city too.
And I’m hoping the choice won’t blow the hoist
‘cos this town, they bit off more than they can chew.

As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
As we gaze out on, as we gaze out on
Saint Dominic’s Preview
Saint Dominic’s Preview
Saint Dominic’s Preview

All the orange boxes are scattered.
Against the Safeway’s supermarket in the rain.
And everybody feels so determined
Not to feel anyone else’s pain.

No one’s making no commitments
To anybody but themselves,
Hidin’ behind closed doorways,
Tryin’ to get outside, outside of empty shells

And for every cross-cuttin’ country corner,
For every Hank Williams railroad train that cried,
And all the chains, badges, flags and emblems
And every strain on every brain and every eye

And the restaurant tables are completely covered.
The record company has paid out for the wine.
You got everything in the world you ever wanted
Right about now your face should wear a smile.

That’s the way it all should happen
When you’re in, when you’re in the state you’re in;
You’ve got your pen and notebook ready,
I think it’s about time, time for us to begin.

And we’re over in a 52nd Street apartment,
Socializing with the whino few,
Just to be hip and get wet with the jet set.
But they’re flying too high to see my point of view.

See them freedom marching,
Out on the street, freedom marching.
Saint Dominic’s Preview.

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