“We've gotta get out of this place"
- The Animals
A cultural note: It was 34 years ago tonight, May 22, 1992, that Johnny Carson broadcast his final episode of The Tonight Show. After 30 years of perfection, the king of late night signed off with the class and dignity that was the show's trademark. My, things change, don't they?
I was wondering recently about how old I was when I first started paying attention to lyrics. When did I notice what and how something was being said? When did I begin to realize that lyrics could stir emotions, make me experience something inside that I couldn't identify but felt?
When I think on some of those first songs that did that, I'm going to say I was around ten or eleven -1968/69. It was during the height of the Vietnam War and I was a kid paying attention. I'd watch the evening news with Walter Cronkite or The Huntley Brinkley Report. Those who were around know that every night body count statistics were given on the broadcasts. How many NVA, Vietcong and American troops were killed, wounded. (January 31, 1968: 246 U.S. service members killed). My big brother was there for 365 days. Having a loved one far away in the thick of things focused my attention. The country was on fire then: war, assassinations, protests, upheaval everywhere (Sound familiar?). So, it was that some of the lyrics I connected with early on were related to all of that turmoil.
Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town/Kenny Rogers & The First Edition/Written by stuttering Mel Tillis:
It wasn't me that started that old crazy Asian war
But I was proud to go and do my patriotic chore
And yes, it's true that I'm not the man I used to be
Oh, Ruby
I still need some company
Galveston/Glen Campbell/Written by Jimmy Webb: This and the two other Jimmy Webb songs that Campbell popularized, Wichita Lineman and By The Time I Get to Phoenix were great early examples of the power of lyrics. Did you know that Webb never got the third verse added to Wichita Lineman? Due to a rush by the studio to get a song for Campbell to record and finish an album, Webb sent it to them saying, "Okay, but the third verse I don't have. They recorded it and released it without it anyway. Consider it the greatest unfinished song in history.
I still hear your sea waves crashing
While I watch the canons flashing
I clean my gun
And dream of Galveston
Lodi/Creedence Clearwater Revival: It's hard to express the impact CCR had on me. All those late 60s hits are seared into my limited gray matter. Eventually, I may not be able to tell you my name but I bet I'll know every word to Green River. The funny thing about CCR is, they had a swampy, bayou kind of sound, but John Fogerty had never stepped foot out of northern California when he wrote them. Lodi has nothing to do with Vietnam. I credit it with birthing my romantic perception of the struggling troubadour life. See if you can pronounce “bad” like Fogerty does in the first verse…"bade"…"bay-eed"…Give it a go.
If I only a dollar for every song I sung
Every time I've had to play while people sat there drunk
You know I'd catch the next train back to where I live
Oh, Lord, stuck in Lodi again
What about you, any memories of when lyrics first landed?