I raised my kids to believe it is merely an event for greeting card companies. Seems that Randy Newman doesn’t have a lot of sentiment for his dad either.
I was in my 40s when I went from feeling I was the child in this song to being the father. I love the line, “You want to stay I know you do/But it ain’t no use to try/’Cause I’ll be here-and I’m just like you/Goodbye, old man, goodbye.”
June 9, 1973, was the most recent time I shaved. Before I had much of a beard, I loved shaving—lather, hot water, cold steel, and some blood makes a man. But when it got to shaving every damn morning to look presentable, I chose unpresentable. When I got laid off the first time, I decided I could modify the psycho biker look I favored. After much thought, I got a haircut and didn’t wear the red Chuck Taylors to the interviews. I kept the beard and bowtie (this was back when jobless men wore ties]. [My brother said he never hired a man who interviewed in a bowtie; that was the surest sign of being a rebel. I said ‘correct.’] In 2005 when I asked my wife if she minded how gray my beard was, she thought for a second and said: Still better than your face.
Winston died June 4. It took me a week to remember I had an album of his reviewed and in the queue. I thought the record was okay for solo piano. That is: no lyrics, no hooks to pull me in, and no sex and drugs to keep me interested. I had no idea it sold three million copies. Obviously other people liked it MUCH more than I did. Allmusic said December had ‘unparalleled—and undeniable—beauty. How can music be simultaneously stirring and soothing, relaxed and yet exalted?’ I think they gave it the same review I did, they just had to pretend they don’t prefer rock and roll to classical lite.
Records I’ve received from friends and relatives tend not to be what I prefer. When my buddy Sean died I inherited ‘December,’ for example, along with some pop gospel and old-fashioned folk music. When my in-laws downsized for the last time I got some jazz and showtunes I might not have chosen for myself. Time for me to get past my squeamishness and integrate these outsider records into my collection.
It’s Billie Joe day.
No, not the Piano Man who didn’t start the fire, it’s the poor fellow who jumped from the Tallahatchie Bridge. Ode to Billie Joe was a hit in 1967, so if you were born since 1960 you probably don’t have a clue. It was a big hit for Bobbie Gentry. I liked it the first 10,000 times I heard it, but I got tired of it.
But every time it started the same: “It was the third of June, a sleepy, dusty Delta day.” There aren’t many songs that mention a specific day—Richmond fell on May 10 (plus or minus six weeks; James McMurtry says that songwriters are bound by meter and rhyme, not historical accuracy) and Papa stopped rolling on September third. Some songs feature the Fourth of July or Christmas Day. I’m keeping track. Hope not to be late to the party next time.
I was in the Delta in late March one year. Believe me, it was hot. It must be very sleepy by June.
If you know my kids, you would be surprised to see that we had a matchbook from a steakhouse. My father and sister cabbaged onto matches from anyplace.
I have no idea why I was writing a lineup for the 2022 White Sox on a matchbook. Good Lord, I have piles of notepaper. I miss Cueto.
converselyspeaking 