I love you because you look like Jim Reeves
BBC2 TV has been showing the documentary series Lost Highway: the story of Country music. Tonight’s episode concentrated on Honky Tonk and the legendary Hank Williams. I was singing along: Lovesick Blues, I’m so lonesome I could cry, Your Cheatin� Heart and Long Gone Lonesome Blues (you get the theme yet?). In the last one, there comes the verse:
“I’m gonna find me a river, one that’s cold as ice.
And when I find me that river, Lord I’m gonna pay the price
Oh Lord! I’m goin’ down in it three times, but Lord I’m only comin up twice.”
Give me this over Wagner or Mozart every time! Despite my reputation for liking highbrow literature (though this means nothing to me), its apparent musical equivalent (fat people shouting at each other) is a cold mystery.
In the doc, Hank Williams is characterised, like all stellar mavericks, as an outcast only latterly embraced into the tradition. Sadly, Hank’s modern equivalents are ignored in this history. No Will Oldham, not even Laura Cantrell. Ah, who cares…
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- For the sake of the Lord It would appear that F…
- More melody makers
- What we need is a War on God
- Spike Dead What are we gonna do now?
- Death’s head ring upon his finger
