“What the world needs now is another folk singer, like I need a hole in my head.”
Teen Angst/Cracker
Last week I was driving somewhere and, as is my practice, I was flipping around various satellite stations for things of interest. In between songs, some DJ mentioned that David Lowery of the band Cracker, was now a professor of music at The University of Georgia. “Huh” I thought, “How about that.”
Lowery, you see, is a favorite songwriter of mine, and his band, Cracker, a favorite too. The amusing thing about it is that Lowery seems like an unlikely fit for academia, to me anyway. He's always seemed like a pretty anti-establishment kinda guy. After all, he's the fella who wrote a song called Take the Skinheads Bowling when he was in his first band, Camper Van Beethoven. But, I pulled up the university's website and, sure enough, there he was in jacket and tie.
Grace, the eldest daughter of our close friends, is a senior at Georgia. She's our friend too. We've known Grace since the day she showed up. Is it possible that she's a college senior? I digress. I texted her and explained all of this. I said if she sees him around campus to tell him she knows someone who's a longtime fan. And that that fan was at the New Daisy Theatre in Memphis the night of the once-a-century ice storm, February 10, 1994, when Cracker played a show with Counting Crows. He'll remember. There's no way he won't, I said. And also, that I think Big Dipper is a masterpiece. It's the kind of song I wish I could write, vague, illusory and specific at the same time.
One marathon I ran back in December of ‘94, I carried a Sony Walkman through most of it. That seems prehistoric now, doesn’t it? Anyway, over several miles I listened to Cracker's song Teen Angst. Listen, rewind, listen, rewind. It has the kind of energy you need around mile 20.
Grace said she'd email Professor Lowery and give him the message if personal contact was not made. Here he is below. The pre jacket and tie version.