There is this song that gets called Country Blues that was first recorded by Doc Boggs in 1928.
You have heard parts of it in other songs or as other songs. It’s a lament detailing what happens to gentle people when they move somewhere where the people are on a scale of gentle - urbane, more down the way toward urbane.
If you come from where people wear the clothes their momma made, you take what you eat and eat what you take, places where God or the holler provide and the response to progress of any sort is, “We don't need none of that around here” you might not be sure what to do in town. If women with whiles and men bent on separating you from your coinage are more than you’ve seen you might have a fall of sorts.
Traditions exist because they fulfill and function in places and times of great need. They look odd in the presence of plenty.
I moved to the city where I live in my early twenties- a geeky skinny kid from a farm town with a working train line. There was a machine parts factory across the alley from the house I grew up in. A block away the train line passed through the lot of a small trucking company. Up the line another block there was a grain elevator. I talk smart, but I am simple really.
I moved to a big ten college town when I was still young enough to always get carded for cigarettes.
But I thrived. A socially awkward kid succeeding in the bars, I was.
Years later, of course, I was old.
Stuff like having your name written in a list of the hottest guys in the women's bathroom of a bar where famous authors and alcoholic grad students hung out lost its appeal.
Movin to town used to seem so much like what you did just before losing touch with living a good way. Why don’t you stay? It used to seem so much.
Bathroom walls used to seem so big. Some people got no sense of glory. When someone tells your story, but you don't know, it used to seem so big.
The city reaches out, but it wont let go and being good at hiding doubt’s the same as, ‘Baby I know it’s gonna be ok. Why don't you stay? You used to seem so much…’
This part requires a little annotation. ‘Trouble Hangin’ out’ and ‘Nerves of Steel’ are two songs I wrote*. Both are on albums that got tiny releases. This self reference has been noticed by exactly one person. ‘Sweet Carolina’ and ‘My Winding Wheel’ are songs on Ryan Adam’s record ‘Heartbreaker’ - his only good one, a memorandum of a loss of innocence like Country Blues.
I got trouble hanging out, but I’ve got nerves of steel, sweet Carolina and my winding wheel if you wont stay. I’ll be ok.
Me, I envy the man on the street drunk on wednesday afternoon, no place to go and a smile that I don't know anymore.
Well, the city reaches out, but it wont let go. Being good at hiding doubt’s the same as I don’t know. It's gonna be ok. Why don't you stay? It used to seem so much.
I got a window facing the street, bars to keep it safe and food to eat I bought at the store but I don’t know.
See, moving to town used to seem so much like what you did just before losing touch with living a good way. why don't you stay? It used to seem so much…like
Living a good way . Why don't you stay? It used to seem so much.
I'm living a good way. Why don’t you stay? It used to seem so much.
It's a Country blues.
These guys that knew me when I wrote this had a nice studio. They asked me to come over and record. It turned into a whole project during the period of time when I was transitioning from playing theater shows back to being a working person. When we quit working on it it didn't seem like there was any reason to make an album. It languished unfinished until the pandemic shut downs. It has famous musicians on it, but this track is mostly me and Andrew Brockman. He played the pedal steel. I played tenor guitar. It’s the first thing we ever worked on together and it wasn’t done until a decade later when we were adding souzaphone at Dave Helmer’s place.
This song is available on a record called Donkey Island, which you can purchase right
Here:
* Trouble Hangin’ Out is on a record called ‘sam knutson Shame Train and the Devil’s Square Quilt’. it is covered in What? Music? 9.
* Nerves of Steel is on a CD produced to raise funds for the Mud River Music Festival probabaly in the year 2000. It is covered in What? Music? 24.
