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Wednesday, July 13, 2005
THE LONG BLACK VEIL
Johnny Cash & Razzy Bailey
The Best of Johnny Cash
Curb : 1991
[Buy It]
Also available on:
Razzy Bailey
Razzy Unwrapped
SOA : 1991
[Buy It]
LONG BLACK VEIL
The Band
Music from Big Pink
reissue : Capitol : 2005
(original release : 1968)
[Buy It]
LONG BLACK VEIL
Jason & the Scorchers
Wildfires & Misfires: Two Decades of Outtakes and Rarities
Yep Roc : 2002
[Buy It]
This song sounds old. Like something that clambered down from the Appalachian Mountains, an oral tradition gone pop standard. It has that simple grace and timeless power. The story-song. Part American folklore, part ghost story. But it's not that old - just about fifty years. This article by Peter Viney presents an illuminating, if partial, history of the song, focusing mostly on The Band's version. It was written in the late '50s by songwriters Wilkin and Dill. Lefty Frizell recorded it first and it rejuvenated his ailing career. From there it recurs with astonishing frequency in various repertoires. Johnny Cash recorded it as early as 1964. I'm not sure about the provenance of this duet with the country-soul singer Razzy Bailey. It appears on Cash's greatest hits and Bailey's duet collection, that's certain. Cash's baritone is mighty here. But Bailey's nuanced croak steals the show. The Chieftans and Mick Jagger took a stab at it. The Band edged it away from country toward a more complex pop composition, but it still sounds country. Jason & the Scorchers grabbed it at each end, stretched it into an even lazier drawl. The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash covered it, fittingly enough. So did Butch Martin and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts. Dylan has been known to break it out live, and Jerry Garcia and friends played it on The Pizza Tapes. There's a terrible country-rock version by the band Uncle Fucker. They almost ruined it. But not quite.
Like any good musical dilletante, I like classic country. Cash. Hank Williams. Steve Earle, if Guitar Town is old enough to count. But I've got a secret. I've developed a secret jones for modern, mainstream country. I've been covertly watching CMT after my girlfriend goes to bed. I like Kenny Chesney. When that Kenny Chesney video about the old blue chair comes on, I'm rapt. I want to sit in that old blue chair. For my life to be that linear and serene. I love the Nelly/Tim McGraw collaboration. I can't stand that Toby Keith though. Although "What Happens in Mexico, Stays in Mexico" is pretty damn funny. Say what you will about the rote sentiments and jingoism of some country music. For a young liberal steeped in cultural relativism and intellectual abstraction, it can be a breath of fresh air. I listen to it like I read mythology, fairy-tales, folk stories. A sphere in which wrong and right are as clearly demarcated as the black and white squares on a Garth Brooks shirt. Men of clear conscience and swift discernment blazing a trail through the world, getting larger as they go. I don't like this mindset in my politics. I would prefer my president not think in such stark dichotomies. But moral clarity has always been a mark of good fantasy. Of myth. I like myths. They provide clear-cut alternatives to the ambiguous world. "Though the miles lay long behind you / You have still got miles to go," Steve Earle sang. Behind and in front. Life as a line. It tugs at my heart. I want a little piece of this clarity for myself. I can't believe in it. But I can enjoy it for the span of a song. Look at the morality of Long Black Veil. An innocent man would rather go to the gallows than shame his best friend and his mistress. A selfless, moral act proceeding directly from a selfish, immoral one. There's no lesson. There's no judgement. It's a story. Told by a ghost. Everything is so clear here. The murder in the circle of light before the courthouse. A simple frame - a circle of light, surrounded by darkness. There's ambiguity as to who committed the murder. But none in the narrator's action - he knows what he has to do and does it. Keep this mindset out of politics. But let me have it in song. I'd like to live there, if just for a little while.
*****
[plug]I have a new personal blog, Slatherpuss.[/plug]
posted by Brian
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