I am passionate about music─ not the kind that makes you want to bang your head against the wall as if you want to give yourself a headache, nor the kind that anyone that can utter nonsensical lyrics to an annoying, repetitious beat, but the kind that makes you want to sing along, or the kind that touches your very soul.
Not to be insensitive to what others consider good music, but it makes no musical sense to want to harm yourself or others just because the artist (I use that word quite loosely) is out of touch with the real world and is angry about it, or because the he intentionally combines squealing guitars with manic, overactive feedback for the purpose of pushing a person over the brink into a state of insanity. I personally don’t see the odd appeal in all of that, but to each his own.
I prefer a song that actually has a melody and tells a story, whether happy or sad, intelligent or irrelevant. One song that tugs at my heartstrings is Like Desperados Waiting For a Train. The song was written by Guy Clark about a close friend, a sad man that the singer comforts through song. "I'd sing the Red River Valley; he'd sit out in the kitchen and cry."
You may not be familiar with Guy Clark or the story that he so artfully crafts in his song, but it’s one that is, in my opinion, both great and unforgettable.
The story is about a young Guy and a man he considered his grandfather, “a drifter and a driller of oil wells,” who wondered if every well had run dry, clear symbolism of an old man's deep regrets over the life he'd lived.
The close friends spend a great deal of time together. Guy's "grandfather" often takes him to the Green Frog Café, a place where all the old men with beer guts played dominoes. Since he is always by the man's side, the old men at the café call him his sidekick. As the boy grows the friendship naturally deepens. The man, an alcoholic, even lets the boy drive his car “when he was too drunk to,” introducing him to the same lifestyle he'd lived. The musical story adds more depth to the friendship, describing their lives ”like some old western movie;” "like desperados waiting for a train.”
The grandfather figure grows old. When the boy is a grown man himself, he goes to visit him one last time. The ending, though predictable, is still heartbreaking.
There is no greater story set to music than Like Desperados Waiting For a Train. It is the very epitome of a perfectly sad story set to a well-composed melody. The live version of the song by the Highwaymen Waylon, Willie, Johnny, and Kris is especially haunting.
I wish that there were many more classic stories like this one, but songwriters today seem to be more inclined to talk about themselves rather than craft a relatable, compelling song that listeners and music aficionados can relate to.
This is not the end to my thoughts about storied songs. Next up: Love at the Five and Dime by Nancy Griffith.
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