Hurtin', Leavin' and Longin' (9)—Too Cold

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

[a] Frosty  RF

The last few days in Wisconsin have been cold days in June. I, of course, mean that the weather was unseasonably chilly. This week's country lyrics take that basic idea and move it to another level—one that is instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever engaged in social interactions of any kind, especially intimate ones. Take a listen and a read.

Trivia question: what is the exact date referred to in the audio "pre-song" in the link below, just as ol' Mark Chesnutt is driving up to the bar? The answer can be found at the end of this post.

Too Cold at Home  4:33

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

       Too Cold at Home
           —Mark Chesnutt
           (Bobby Harden) 

           Well it sure feels good to come in here, and just pull up a seat
           A frosty mug of a cool one helps to beat the heat
           These old dog days of summer, Lord I'll be glad when they're gone
           It's too hot to fish, and too hot for golf
           And too cold at home

          Well that baseball game on TV takes me back to when I was a kid
          We proudly wore those uniforms, just like the Dodgers did
          Yeah we won a few and lost a few, and for me it still goes on
          It's too hot to fish, and too hot for golf
          And too cold at home 
     
          Well I only planned on one or two, I might stay for three
          If that good looking thing in the corner keeps smiling back at me
          It's so easy not to care about what's right or what's wrong
          It's too hot to fish, too hot for golf
          And too cold at home 
          Repeat 

          It's too hot to fish, and too hot for golf
          And too cold at home

Is it Cold in Here...?  3:47
Is it Cold in Here...?  3:45

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

        Is it Cold in Here?
            —Joe Diffie

 (Danny Morrison;Kerry Kurt Phillips;Joe Diffie)

There's something wrong
Lord I'm feeling a chill
That runs through my heart
Like a torch cuts through steel
You haven't said a word
Are you feeling it too
Is it cold in here
Or is it just you?

Chorus
Did I leave the door wide open
And let the chill just kill that old desire?
Should I put my arms around you
Or put another log on the fire?
Is it my imagination
Or did the temperature just drop
A notch or two?
Is it cold in here
Or is it just you?

There's no warmth at all
When I try to hold you near
You stare into space
As if I wasn't here
Did our love just die
Or is it just about to?
Is it cold in here
Or is it just you?

Chorus

Oh is it cold in here
Or is it just you?

[b] Ripples  RF

This week's East Asian poem comes with a twist. It will be our first Japanese verse, and comes in the rich context of the Tales of Ise, a tenth-century compendium of stories and poems that is one of the most memorable and distinguished classics in the Japanese tradition. I have already referred to the Tales on Round and Square in an "Endings" post several months ago, and it is always a pleasure to return to one of my favorite books. Although I enjoy translating, I think it would be far better to let Helen Craig McCullough's fine rendering of the passage stand on its own this week.

As always, remember that the East Asian poems are meant to be juxtaposed with the country lyrics, not echo them. I say it every week, and will continue to do so. Juxtaposition often creates interpretive fireworks that are resonant and lasting. Trying to find cross-cultural "echoes" of themes often mires us in a cultural kind of "common denominator" pursuit that gets us nowhere. Enjoy the contrast the Tales of Ise give to the "too cold" images above.

Tales of Ise

4

Once when a Grand Empress was living on Gojou Avenue in the eastern sector of the capital, a certain woman occupied the western wing of her house. Quite without premeditation, a man fell in love with the woman and began to visit her. Around the Tenth of the First Month, the woman moved away without a word. The man learned where she had gone, but it was not a place for ordinary people to frequent, and he could do nothing but lament the wretchedness of life. In the First Month of the following year, when the plum trees were in full bloom, poignant memories drew him back to her old apartments. He sat and looked, he stood and looked, but it was hopeless to try to recapture the past. He burst into tears, flung himself on the floor of the bare room, and lay prostrate until the moon sank low in the sky. He composed this poem with the preceding year in his thoughts.

               tsuki ya aranu                                                   Is this not the moon?
          haru ya mukashi no                                          And is this not the springtime
               haru naranu                                                      the springtime of old?
          wa ga mi hitotsu wa                                          Only this body of mine,
          moto no mi ni shite                                            the same body as before...

He went home at dawn, still shedding tears.[1]

[1] Helen Craig McCullough, Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 41.

Bibliography
McCullough, Helen Craig. Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990.

Trivia answer: June 12, 1990 (Ryan pitched the no-hitter the evening of June 11, 1990.
 

NEXT
Sunday, July 3rd
Kentucky Rain
Elvis is on a quest to find his loved one in the cold Kentucky rain.

Endings (4)—Tales of Ise

Click here for an introduction to the Round and Square series "Endings." 
 

[a] Far from the capital

[b] Ise view

Once, on a bus hurtling toward the southern tip of Honshu (Japan's main island), I found myself in an animated conversation about Japanese literature with an obviously well-read man of about fifty. The sights from the bus windows were riveting. Almost every scrap of land looked like it eased off into foamy white, followed by pale blue, and then dark blue waters. Beautiful though the coastline was, however, the conversation was even better. After several decades of reading the literature of the islands, I was having a chance to speak deeply about poetry and prose to a lover of literature outside of a university (note to self—get out more; stop talking only to professors, just because of where you work).

[c] Swelling moisture

The topic came, as it often does in such conversations, to our favorite bits of Japanese literature (he phrased it, of course, as "favorite bits of literature." I told him that he needed to give me a minute, but asked him to name his. He was about to speak, when I interrupted him (politely—this was Japan, after all, and there were more than our fare share of ちょっとs and other politesse in the conversation). "I have it," I said, suspecting (I don't really know why) that we might have the same scene from the thousands we could have chosen. Why I thought that, I can only guess. We were in a neck of the woods (as we say) that might have conjured it up. Still, I had an inkling. "Tell me yours and I'll do the same." We spoke, at almost the same instant.

Yup, they were the same. Amazing how that happens in a way that only works in nonfiction (no one would believe it if it were in a novel).

It is only an "ending" in a loose sense, but it fits the theme and pattern of Round and Square's "Endings" series quite nicely.

Themes worth pondering, at least to make the fragment here more understandable include:

                      (1) The capital is the center of everything, and "elsewhere" is "nowhere."

                      (2) Whether or not "real life" worked this way, people "speak poetry" a lot.

[d] Moist swells

(3) People "speak poetry" a lot in well-defined syllabic and rhyme schemes.

(4) Dry (parched) rice "travels" best.

(5) Crying is o.k.

I like to think of this part of "narrative nine" in The Tales of Ise (伊勢物語) as the seed for Hank Williams and his musings a millennium later (There's a Tear in my Beer). Helen Craig McCullough's fine translation will lead us through the literary wilderness.

The "last" line is the best in all of Japanese literature.

[e] Ise tales

Tales of Ise

9

[f] 伊勢物語

Once a certain man decided that it was useless for him to stay in the capital. Accompanied by one or two old friends, he set out toward the east in search of a province where he could settle down. Since none of the party knew the way, they simply blundered along as best they could. In time, they arrived at a place in Mikawa Province called Yatsuhashi (八つ橋). It was where the waters of a stream branched into eight channels, each with its own bridge, which was why it had come to be called Yatsuhashi [Eight Bridges]. They dismounted under a tree near this marshy area and sat down to a meal of parched rice.

One of them noticed some irises blooming in the swamp. "Compose a poem on the subject, 'A Traveler's Sentiments,' beginning each line with a syllable from the word 'iris' [kakitsubata], he said. The man recited:

                       [ka]    karagoromo                               I have a dear wife,

                       [ki]     kitsutsu narenishi                      familiar to me as skirts

                      [tsu]    tsuma shi areba                          of a well-worn robe,

                  [ha/ba]    harubaru kinuru                         and thus these distant travels

                        [ta]    tabi o shi zo omou                     darken my heart with sorrow.

They all wept onto their rice until it swelled with the moisture.[1]

[g] Tales of Iris

[1] Helen Craig McCullough, Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 42.