should you go first, or if you follow me

[thejunipertree]

This is probably fairly redundant at this point and I feel like a retard, but it still needs to be written. I had a small blurb about it up earlier, with a link. But, that didn't seem like enough to me, so I took it down to write this.

---

It's no secret that both of my parents are both VERY into country music and have been, for my entire life. I was raised on this music and I know the lyrics to more songs by the greats then I could ever possibly recount for you. To this day, I will argue that the people in the modern country music business now are hacks. They don't have the soul or the talent of the artists who came before them. On a number of occasions, while I've ridden in the car with my mother and she was listening to the local country radio station, I have shouted at the radio in frustration.

Why don't they play any of the classics?! This stuff is crap!
Because they think it's not popular anymore.
That's just fucking ridiculous.
I know, Tara. I know.

I remember being very, very young and asking my father why the one man on a lot of his records was always dressed in black. I used to sit on the floor and flip through the album covers, looking at all the pictures on them, wondering who the people were and what they sounded like. It was a game to me, to try and imagine their voices. When I asked my father that question, he looked at me and said that the man in black was Johnny Cash. And he always wore black to symbolise the downtrodden people of the world. I asked what downtrodden went and he sent me to the dictionary I had been given for occasions such as this.

I smiled after I read the definition, marvelling at how noble this man was. I asked my dad how could he do this for people he didn't even know? He played for me the song, "Man in Black". And I cried, unable to help it, as I listened. My father put his arms around me and whispered, "He knows you now."

I grew older and received my own stereo as a gift. And I'd nick my parents' cassette tapes and records and listen to them on the sly. Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash. And in my early teens, I started to dress in all black as well, for my own private reasons. As I got even older, I discovered the music of Nick Cave and in him I heard a distant echo of the records my father would play for me. My dad even made that connection on his own one day, when I was about twenty-four.

We were cleaning up a house I was about to move into, it needed a lot of work. And I was playing a cd of "The Boatman's Call".

What's this you're listening to?
It's Nick Cave, Daddy.
Sounds a little like Johnny Cash, some of it. You
remember when we used to listen to his records?
Yeah, I do.

And I smiled, remembering.

Today, I woke up like any other day. I turned my computer on and went into the kitchen to make some tea so I could clear all the cobwebs from my brain. Sitting down in front of the monitor with my a cigarette in my hand, the very first email I read was from an e-list I belong to.

The subject was "R.I.P. The Man In Black" and the body of the message consisted solely of "It's a sad day..." and then a link to a web page. I didn't follow the link, but I knew what it meant. My heart sank and I started to cry.

For the man I never met, but still somehow knew.

Can't be sure of how's it's going to be
When we walk into the light across the bar
But I'll know you and you'll know me
Out there beyond the stars

We've seen the secret things revealed by God
And we heard what the angels had to say
Should you go first, or if you follow me
Will you meet me in Heaven someday?

Comments

[muridae.livejournal.com]

To this day, I will argue that the people in the modern country music business now are hacks. They don't have the soul or the talent of the artists who came before them.

That's the fucking truth. Soulless pre-fabricated twangy radio-made crap, nothing like the greats who came before them.

My daddy always listened to Johnny Cash. He grew up in the south, you know, and he's not a big music fan, but country and the south go together naturally. When we first got a car, it had an 8-track player and we had an 8-track of Live at San Quentin and we would drive around and around listening to that music.

I think his music is a big part of a lot of us out here.

Johnny Cash had integrity, he had soul, he had a skill for putting into words and music all the darkest and most violent things, and yet at the end of his records you get this sense that it's gonna work out okay, that it has to because you can't get any lower and because something's got to change.

oh I am weak
oh I know I am vain
take this weight from me
let my spirit be unchained

I sincerely hope he's gotten his wish.

poor johnny.

[madamewoselle.livejournal.com]

I heard about it at a meeting, where this art kid was dressed all in black. The teacher asked why, he said he was in "mourning." I started crying the minute I left the meeting. I loved his music so much. I'm just glad he's with June again and they weren;t separated for long.