[a] Turriroad RF |
[b] Blend RF |
This is one of them, in my opinion. The combination of Keith Whitley's mellifluous longings—as well as the combination of flight, lyric, love, and home—are more than enough for me. The title is perfect; it envelops the listener in the weaving profluence of the song while pointing almost playfully toward a false lead or two.
This is a fine example of a song that needs to be sung. When I just read the lyrics, it is hard to see anything particularly special in it. I attribute that to songwriting mastery—a kind of understatement that is brought to fruition and ripeness (like a carefully decanted vintage) over the course of the telling...with instruments. It is fundamentally performative, and it is only when the lyrics meet the air of spoken delivery that their evocative power really springs forth. Although I am straining the oenological references a bit here, the point remains. Lyrics are just a part of the toolkit employed by the experienced singer of tales.
[c] Birds-eye RF |
Take a listen (and then a read) to Kentucky Bluebird. The first recording is from the incomparable Keith Whitley. I have included an (in my opinion quite good) interpretation by another artist, Wade Hayes (with backup by my all-time favorite, Patty Loveless).
Kentucky Bluebird
Artist: Keith Whitley
Songwriters: Don Cook, Wally Wilson
Blown down the highway
By two different winds
Lord only knows
When I'll see you again
You're about as close
As the stars up above
You're my long distance love
Chorus
By two different winds
Lord only knows
When I'll see you again
You're about as close
As the stars up above
You're my long distance love
Chorus
Kentucky Bluebird
I heard your song today
But when I try to touch you
You fly away
Blue is a feeling I'm learning so well
Turn on the TV
In another hotel
Turn down the volume
And stare at the wall
God I wish you would call
Repeat Chorus
How I hate the miles between us
They get longer each day
I had this dream
And you should have seen us
Holding each other
And drifting away
Repeat Chorus
I heard your song today
But when I try to touch you
You fly away
Blue is a feeling I'm learning so well
Turn on the TV
In another hotel
Turn down the volume
And stare at the wall
God I wish you would call
Repeat Chorus
How I hate the miles between us
They get longer each day
I had this dream
And you should have seen us
Holding each other
And drifting away
Repeat Chorus
[d] Wistful RF |
And then I stopped trying to juxtapose the lyrics (for just this week). "Kentucky Bluebird" is a Chinese poem, I realized, and I would prefer to show just a little of the crisscrossing strands of aviary longing to be found everywhere in Chinese poetry. Once I had decided to go for echo, the new problem was to find just one poem. They are all "Kentucky Bluebird."
There was only one solution. I simply opened the book and pointed. Really. Here is the plumèd result.
Tune: "Echoing Heaven's Everlastingness"
Li Jing (916-961)
There was only one solution. I simply opened the book and pointed. Really. Here is the plumèd result.
Tune: "Echoing Heaven's Everlastingness"
Li Jing (916-961)
A single slender crescent brow before her dressing mirror
Her cicada-wing hairdo and phoenix pins indolently left awry,
Still, within many curtains,
Remote, in her storied tower,
Sad and grieving over falling flowers the wind will not let rest.
On the willow banks there were paths in the fragrant grass,
But her dream was broken by the windlass of an ornate well.
Last night as the watches ended, she awoke from wine;
Her spring grief worse than any illness.
—Translated by Daniel Bryant
Her cicada-wing hairdo and phoenix pins indolently left awry,
Still, within many curtains,
Remote, in her storied tower,
Sad and grieving over falling flowers the wind will not let rest.
On the willow banks there were paths in the fragrant grass,
But her dream was broken by the windlass of an ornate well.
Last night as the watches ended, she awoke from wine;
Her spring grief worse than any illness.
—Translated by Daniel Bryant
Notes
[1] Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo, Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1974), 299.
Bibliography
Liu Wu-chi and Irving Yucheng Lo. Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry.
Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1974.
Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1974.
[e] Blue RF |
NEXT
Sunday, April 1st
Sunday, April 1st
Good Ole Boys Like Me
We'll stay on our wistful memory theme for another week, with reflections on youth and aging by Don Williams. If you have stereotypes of country boys, this will pretty much break 'em. Not many country songs reference Thomas Wolfe and Tennessee Williams.
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