Hurtin', Leavin' and Longin' (47)—Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down

Click here to read the introduction to the Round and Square series "Hurtin', Leavin', and Longin'..."
One year ago on Round and Square (15 April 2011)—Seinfeld Ethnography: Elaine Exclaims

[a] Downbottle RF

We're back to themes of drinking and memory. It's depressing stuff, but that, of course, is the whole point of this series. Let's think about misery in the world of mind-altering substances. It's all about the thinkin', and memory weaves its insidious web around Merle in this song. Take a listen.

Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down 2:49

     Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down
         Artist: Merle Haggard
         Songwriter: Merle Haggard
            Each night I leave the bar room when it's over

Not feeling any pain at closing time
But tonight your memory found me much too sober
Couldn’t drink enough to keep you off my mind

Tonight the bottle let me down
And let your memory come around
The one true friend I thought I'd found
Tonight the bottle let me down

I've always had a bottle I could turn to
And lately I've been turning every day
But the wine don't take effect the way it used to
And I'm hurting in an old familiar way

Tonight the bottle let me down
And let your memory come around
The one true friend I thought I'd found
Tonight the bottle let me down
Tonight the bottle let me down

[b] Empty RF

Hurting in an old familiar way... This country ode to neural pathways has a message that can be seen in the best hurtin' lyrics. The combination of medication and misery forms the all-too-common central prescription at the lonesome clinic down the street (the one with stools...um, barstools). Have a headache? Take an aspirin. Have a heartache? Take a bottle...and stop thinking. This is not an ennobling equation, but it is certainly a common one. The problem is that, like many short-term solutions, it doesn't last. Once it wears off, all that's left is memory—sometimes acute, but always chronic.

Merle is on to something here. Couldn't drink enough to keep you off my mind. The rest of the song plays upon the implications of this idea. There is the disease (since I speak of the world of the song, I mean memory) and there is the treatment. The treatment ain't workin' like it used to, and tonight the treatment let him down. The metonymical resonance here can be extended to all sorts of ways we employ to talk about our worlds. The bottle let him down, and but he probably still can remember the day when he wore the ring. Now he's celebrating his forty-proof anniversary.

[c] Convenient care RF

***  ***

I'll bet you won't be surprised to hear that there are plenty of drinking and thinking lyrics in the Chinese poetic tradition. I have chosen a combination of scenes written by Wei Zhuang (836-910), just as the lyric (詞) form was taking shape. There is nothing derivative or simple about this set of images. From the perspective of drinkin', the third one will obviously dominate. Reading the entire series—and reflecting on travel, time, and physical space—provides a resonant contrast with Merle Haggard's song.

Tune: "Deva-like Barbarian," Five Lyrics
Wei Zhuang (836-910)
                                             [1]
     The night of our parting in the red tower is enough for sorrow;
     By the fragrant lamp, the tasseled screen is but half rolled up. 
     As I leave the moon is just fading;
     She says goodby mixed with tears.

     The guitar is ornamented with gold and kingfisher feathers;
     From its strings come the caroling cries of orioles.
     Urging me to return soon, 
     She is like a flower in the window!
  
                                           [2]
     Everyone says it is good to live south of the Yangtze;
     The traveler can but stay there until he grows old.
     The spring waters are more blue than the heavens;
     On the painted boat drowsily I listen to the rain.

     The girl who pours wine is like the moon;
     Her wrists are as bright as frosted snow.
     If you are not yet old, don't return home;
     To return home is to be broken hearted!

                                             [3]       

[d] Tobacco, tea, liquor RF

Today I still remember my happiness south of the Yangtze;
Then I was young, and my spring robe was light.
On horseback I would draw near the slanting bridge;
From the towers red sleeves everywhere beckoned me.

Golden filigree and kingfisher feathers adorned the curved screen;
Drunkenly I entered that grove of flowers and stayed the night.
Now whenever I see a blossoming branch,
I vow not to return until my hair is white!

                                             [4] 
     Host:
            I urge you to get very drunk tonight;
            Don't talk of tomorrow in front of the wine jar!
     Guest:
            I greatly appreciate your sentiment;
            The wine is deep, but my feelings are even deeper!
     Host:
            Only grieve that the spring night is so short;
            And don't complain that your cup is full!
            When there is wine we can laugh
            How long does human life last?

                                             [5]  

[e] South RF

Spring is bright and splendid in the city of Lo-yang;
But the man of Lo-yang grows old in another land.
The willows darken on the Prince of Wei's embankment;
At this time I am confused and bewildered.

Alongside the blossoming peach, the spring waters run clear;
Mandarin ducks bathe in their freshness.
My regret gathers force in the setting sun;
I think of you, but you do not know it!

Notes

[1]  Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo, Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1974), 283-284.

Bibliography

Liu Wu-chi and Irving Yucheng Lo. Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry. 
     Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1974. 

NEXT
Sunday, April 22nd

Harper Valley PTA
Although it's not exactly a hurtin' song, it is a fightin' one—and it's simply too good to pass up. Conflict theory meets cultural capital, and the theoretical sparks will fly. Talcott Parsons won't have a clue.

[f] Travelin' RF

Hurtin', Leavin' and Longin' (22)—Untangling My Mind

Click here to read the introduction to the Round and Square series "Hurtin', Leavin', and Longin'..."

[a] Leaving RF

This is one of the most miserable songs I have heard in the last twenty years. Please don't get the wrong impression. As readers of these Sunday Hurtin' posts surely know by now, it is high praise. I have already mentioned several times in this series that Clint Black has a peculiar knack for portraying loss, vacancy, and cognitive dissonance. For this song, he teamed up with Merle Haggard—whose own lyrics include "Mama Tried" and "Nobody Knows I'm Hurtin'"—to bring even more breadth and depth to the lyrical pain each is able to inflict on his own. Call it tag-team heartache, but it works.

The very title of the song points to the intersection of psychological despair and social cleavage. There is a bit of "story" in these lines, but the journey takes us more deeply into the narrator's mind than down the path and away from home. There are, indeed, so many great lines that I hesitate to pick just one or two. This is great songwriting at its peak, and I find even the sentence ending prepositions absolutely exquisite. Listen for yourself, and soak in the lyrics. Let me add, as I occasionally do in these posts, that the video is quite good, and well worth a view. First, however, make sure that you watch the lyrics. These posts are about the relationship between imagination and representation, and while the latter surely includes video images, I hope that you concentrate first on the way human anguish is carried in words.

Untangling My Mind  3:25

For advice on how best to "engage" the lyrics, click here.

      Untangling My Mind
          Artist: Clint Black
          Songwriters: Clint Black and Merle Haggard
          Well I guess you're glad to see I'm finally leaving
          I know things for you will change now for the good
          But it's all that I can do to pack my suitcase
          And walk away from you the way I should

          And I can't seem to find the voice of reason
          Everything seems upside down and right side wrong
          While part of me is here and won't like leaving
          The rest of me, the best of me is gone

          Chorus

          And I'm sure no one will wonder where I've gone to
          But if anyone should ask from time to time
          Tell 'em that you finally drove me crazy
          And I'm somewhere untangling my mind
          Well tell 'em I won't be riding I'll be walking
          'Cause I don't think a crazy man should drive
          Anyway the car belongs to you now
          Along with any part of me that's still alive

          But there's really not much left you could hold on to
          And if you did it wouldn't last here anyway
          It'd head to where the rest of me rolled on to
           So even if I wanted to I couldn't stay

          Repeat Chorus
          I'm somewhere untanglin' my mind

[b] Lush longing RF

It certainly is not difficult to find parallels to these sentiments in East Asian poetry. No, they are not usually about the exact set of alluded-to circumstances in the song (although some are close). I have chosen today, however, to write of exilic anguish. Regular readers of Round and Square will likely have noticed that more and more posts have a kind of thematic cross-referencing these days. Life is like that—complicated and interconnected.

Such a realization led me to one of the best "teamings" in all of Chinese poetry. Exiled to Hainan Island in the late-eleventh century, Su Shi (1038-1101) reflected upon the exilic lyrics of an earlier poet, the venerable Tao Yuanming (365-427). He set out to write matching lyrics to very single one of Tao's works (numbering well over a hundred). In Su Shi's own eleventh century, matching poems were part of the give and take of intellectual life. No one had thought, however, to span the centuries and match the poems of an earlier writer, and it was Su's genius to realize the possibilities.

Below, we have one example, taken from Ronald Egan's magnificent study of the great Northern Song dynasty poet. Although the following poems are not meant to be "matches," they both reflect the contrapuntal engagement between Tao Qian's six century-old lyrics and the Su Shi's contemplation of island exile. In both, we see themes of longing, vacancy, despair...and a little bit of hope.

      Tao Qian (Early-Fifth Century CE)

          Sharp and chill the year draws to a close;

          On the porch I clutch my coat and sun myself.

          The southern garden holds no sprig of green

          Withered branches fill the northern orchard.

          I tilt the bottle and no drop comes out

          I glance at the stove but see no smoke.

          The classic books lie piled beside my seat

          The sun declines, and leaves no time for study.

          Without a job is not a "crisis in Chen,"

          But with me too are those who show resentment.

          What consolation is there left for me?

          All those gentlemen since ancient times.[1]

       Su Shi (Late-Eleventh Century CE)

          The desperate gibbon has hid in the forest,

          The weary horse has been relieved of its halter.

          My mind vacant, I am sated on new acquisitions;

          The land familiar, I give my thoughts to dreams.

          River gulls flock tamely beside me,

          Dan boatmen sail back and forth.

          Green coins grow on the southern pond,

          Purple bamboo shoots are tall on the north peak.

          How could the raise-a-gourd know how to drink?

          Yet his welcome call eases my heart.

          The river in spring inspires fine poetic lines

          As I drink, I slip into the vast emptiness.[2]

[c] Re-presented RF

[1] Ronald Egan, Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 235.

[2] Egan, Su Shi, 234.

Bibliography

Egan, Ronald. Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.

NEXT

Sunday, October 9th

Here in the Real World

Next week, Alan Jackson tells us about the real tears that fall...here in the real world.