As I noted
when I last wrote here, one of my resolutions for this new year was to read
more poetry. My poetry reading has
slowed, though I was delighted by William Stafford’s Sound of the Ax:
aphorisms and poetry. Here are a
couple of gems.
Everything has
meaning. Be a total receiver. (35)
Before you hear the
music, you do the dance. (8)
I don’t
know about making resolutions mid-year, but here’s one. I will write on this blog at least once a
month. I need to find time to put some thoughts
together in this space, while not neglecting all the other places where I need
to bring ideas together.
Over the
course of my lifetime, I have tried to grow as a receiver. I have grown in the music I listen to. When I was younger, it was pretty strictly
pop and rock. I was much like my
peers. I have since grown to love jazz,
appreciate classical and opera, and I have developed a fondness for country. To have even said such a thing when I was in
high school or college was to invite social ostracism. Yet there is a certain beauty and truth that
gets expressed well in country music.
To be sure,
there are a lot of clichés – honky tonk angels, good loving women who put up
with a bit of cheating and boozing in their men (though there are limits). Yet many country women portray rare strength and
determination.
Recently I
have been listening to the music of Miranda Lambert. O.K. not an original discovery by any means. Rolling
Stone did a big write up of her in a recent issue on country music. Anyway, I decided to give a listen.
One finds a
generous portion of country music clichés on her albums. In her songs there are cheating men, though
she doesn’t put up with much. Guns play
a role in the music (“Time to Get a Gun” from Revolution).
There are times when Miranda
Lambert’s music digs a little deeper. That’s the way the world goes ‘round, One
minute your up, the next you’re down, It’s half an inch of water and you think
you’re gonna drown, That’s the way the world goes round. I have to appreciate that image of half
an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown. I have been there. I have had days like that. That’s the way the world goes round, at least
sometimes.
Jesus shows up, too. Now Jesus can be a country music cliché, but
sometimes you can encounter something a little more real. I ain’t
the kind you take home to mama. I ain’t
the kind to wear no ring. Somehow I
always get stronger when I’m on my second drink. Even though I hate to admit it, sometimes I
smoke cigarettes. Christian folks say I
should quit. I just smile and say God
bless. “Cause I heard Jesus He drank wine, and I bet we’d get along just
fine. He could calm a storm and heal the
blind, and I bet he’d understand a heart like mine. A Jesus who reached outside the bounds of
respectability seems more akin to the Jesus of the New Testament than a Jesus
who likes us in our Sunday best.
This isn’t the most profound stuff
around, but it is delivered with a music that swings and a voice that has melody
and meaning. There is something to dance
to here, on many levels. To be sure,
Miranda Lambert is no Socrates, but it will never be said of Miranda Lambert
what was said of Socrates – He had
wide-se, bulging eyes that darted sideways and enabled him, like a crab, to see
not only what was straight ahead, but what was beside him as well; a flat,
upturned nose with flaring nostrils; and large fleshy lips like an ass. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
With Faith and With Feathers,
David
