Swung High and Americana
Americana should be a loaded word. I actually find it odd, in this messy time of everyone and their elected representative claiming to be the only true American, that conservatives don’t even try to claim the word. It should, I suppose, be a word of the right. A word that could roam toward jingoism and chest thumping. But it has been usurped. It’s been stolen. It’s been taken over by us leftist, intellectual, pinko, long hair, chicken raisin’, land ploughin’, fox shootin’ (I can hope), Ford truck drivin’, hippy sombitches. God, how I hate ‘em. ‘Least we gots country music. Screw that Americana.
Kinda funny that country music had to rip off eighties hair bands and add a twang in order to stay hick, ain’t it?
However, MY problem with Americana is most of it seems to come out of New York City. We have us a whole lot of lads and lasses who picked up acoustic guitars after the obligatory punk band, listened to a tune or two by the Carter Family, listened to a whole lot of Mellencamp and Seger (Bob, not Pete) and Young, and started singing Americana…
So here I am. I don’t sing Americana. At all, really. I just like to steal from it.
And the new tune steals from the best. It’s not the best poem in the world. Not by a long shot. Not by a home run. It swung and missed, one might be tempted to say. But it is one of my favorite bits of true Americana. Casey At The Bat.
The new tune is a bit of a continuation of Casey At The Bat. After he blew it. After he swung and missed.
It’s also a bit of an anachronism. Casey At The Bat was published in 1888. But mine is a song of American loss and of the loser and for me, well, that always takes place in the 1930s. Actually, I don’t think that there is anything specific in my song that forces it to take place in the 1930s – but in my head, it does. And, I suppose, it takes place in Steinbeck’s ’30s. It’s the truck that screws it all up. You can’t drive outta town in 1888. I thought about trying to re-write the lyrics to not involve a truck, but then I decided, “Screw it. I like the truck. You gotta have a truck.” So the truck stayed in the song.
Oddly, my warn out truck broke down driving home after the gig I premiered this tune at. Funny that. But I suppose she made it out of Mudville, at least…
Anyway, Swung High is up here. The lyrics:
SWUNG HIGH
If I walk from that silent mine
Just a old fraud from the Mudville Nine
Well the road is wide
Black of lung and black of grace
I really don’t remember now how I found this place
Well, the road is wide
Found a dime and I stole a buck
Till I staggered out of Mudville in a worn out truck
That town is long behind
Where I glanced at the mound till I caught his eye
I swung for the moon and I swung high
Hit the road plaid Roebuck
The berries all bloomed like a white teacup
And the road was wide
I picked em all at a quarter a day
For every bag I filled there’s a bag I ate
And the road was wide
Summer come with a retching heat
My old ball cap and some beans to eat
With some time to bide
Steam blew and an axle bent
Radiator sings curbside laments
With some time to bide
The cold came and the leaves were brown
Stuck in West Virginia in a mining town
Put the road aside
One room and an iron stove
After twelve long hours in a darkened hole
Put the road aside
If I walk from that silent mine
Just a old fraud from the Mudville Nine
Well the road is wide
