If, as I'm trying to convince you, rock & roll has a split personality, then 'country music' is a multi headed Hydra of forms and styles from the harrowing, skinny bone white heartbreak of Hank Williams to the camp opulence of......oh take your pick. But however the presentation, the content stays pretty constant and it's probably best summed up by Johnny Cash when he said "I love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humour, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak, and love. And Mother. And God."
Johnny Cash knew a thing or two about country music. So did Roger Bowling; Bowling co-wrote 'Lucille' and in so doing managed to fit in a fair proportion of Cash's favourite themes - family, hard times, whiskey, marriage, adultery, separation, home, pride, tragedy, heartbreak and love are all here and all wrapped up in Kenny Rogers' unique brand of rocking chair groove.
Rogers' best known songs tend to be best known via their choruses. Even those with an aversion to country can tell you got to know when to hold 'em, that we should walk away from trouble when we can and what a fine time Lucille picked to leave. Oh yes, 'Lucille' has a memorable chorus alright, so much so it provided the punchline to two fairly poor jokes I remember from my younger days*, but there's a lot more to the song than that.
Because I'll make a confession - I came here originally to bury 'Lucille', not to praise it. And that's because all I really knew of the song was that chorus and Rogers' mogodon monotone delivery that in no way gives the impression of a man at the end of his rope. But the joke was on me because, as far as 'Lucille' goes, it's not Rogers' character singing that chorus but a third party within the song's story. And as a story, 'Lucille' is morally ambiguous to the point of blackness - Rogers has met a woman at a bar who, after being plied with drink, tells him "I finally quit living on dreams. I'm hungry for laughter". As they are talking, a man enters the bar and sits next to them - "He looked like a mountain, for a minute I thought I was dead", but instead of violence, he speaks to the woman in the resigned words of the chorus:
"You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille
With four hungry children and crops in the field.
I've had some bad times, lived through some sad times,
but this time the hurtin' won't heal.
You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille."
After he leaves, Rogers and the woman rent a hotel room, but remembering the words of her husband, he loses his appetite for stranger sex: "I couldn't hold her, for the words that he told her, kept coming back time after time".
There's an awful lot going on in there when you look closely, and not all that deeply either - who are we meant to be rooting for in all this? Who are we meant to be feeling sorry for? Who are the bad guys? Country villains usually wear black, but 'Lucille' is cast in varying shades of grey. Nobody comes out of all this with too much credit and none of the characters are particularly likeable. Even the husband comes across as piss-weak in confronting his wife and the whole morally blank tale is unlikely fodder for a number one easy listening country single.
I think a close relative of Lucille would be the unnamed serial womaniser in Bruce Springsteen's 'Hungry Heart':
"Got a wife and kids in Baltimore jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back
Like a river that don't know where it's flowing
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going"
Bruce places his man's motive in devil may care wanderlust (and lust) before admitting "Ain't nobody like to be alone" and his good time bar song makes it sound like a virtue, a sloping shoulders of "Hey, I'm a bloke, what else did you expect"? Lucille's motives are no less selfish and hedonistic than Bruce's yet can anyone really hold her up as a strong female figure to aspire to or a martyr to feminism? In country terms she's the absolute antithesis of Tammy Wynette's feminine ideal in 'Stand By Your Man' but her going against the grain of the norm generates far more finger pointing "how COULD she" comment from her disapproving peers than Bruce.
And that's about as far as I intend wading into the murky waters of sexual politics. For there be dragons. Of course, Rogers' voice and the feint pulse backing of the music serves to pull all the teeth from out of the mouth of the dangerous beast to leave a dribbling mess of soft mouth slobber until the chorus elbows the verses into the long grass to give folk something nice to sing along to. But all the same, 'Lucille' isn't the saccharine pill that many (and yes, I include myself in that) think it is. Like a razor blade hidden in a bar of chocolate, there's no harm done if all you get is a taste of the surface (which is what Rogers' wet lick of a version does), but there will be blood if you bite down hard.
* Both involved miss-singing the words of the chorus. One went 'You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel' while the other involved 'four hundred children and a cock in the tree'. I honestly can't remember how the rest of either joke goes, but I don't imagine they've aged well.
Johnny Cash knew a thing or two about country music. So did Roger Bowling; Bowling co-wrote 'Lucille' and in so doing managed to fit in a fair proportion of Cash's favourite themes - family, hard times, whiskey, marriage, adultery, separation, home, pride, tragedy, heartbreak and love are all here and all wrapped up in Kenny Rogers' unique brand of rocking chair groove.
Rogers' best known songs tend to be best known via their choruses. Even those with an aversion to country can tell you got to know when to hold 'em, that we should walk away from trouble when we can and what a fine time Lucille picked to leave. Oh yes, 'Lucille' has a memorable chorus alright, so much so it provided the punchline to two fairly poor jokes I remember from my younger days*, but there's a lot more to the song than that.
Because I'll make a confession - I came here originally to bury 'Lucille', not to praise it. And that's because all I really knew of the song was that chorus and Rogers' mogodon monotone delivery that in no way gives the impression of a man at the end of his rope. But the joke was on me because, as far as 'Lucille' goes, it's not Rogers' character singing that chorus but a third party within the song's story. And as a story, 'Lucille' is morally ambiguous to the point of blackness - Rogers has met a woman at a bar who, after being plied with drink, tells him "I finally quit living on dreams. I'm hungry for laughter". As they are talking, a man enters the bar and sits next to them - "He looked like a mountain, for a minute I thought I was dead", but instead of violence, he speaks to the woman in the resigned words of the chorus:
"You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille
With four hungry children and crops in the field.
I've had some bad times, lived through some sad times,
but this time the hurtin' won't heal.
You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille."
After he leaves, Rogers and the woman rent a hotel room, but remembering the words of her husband, he loses his appetite for stranger sex: "I couldn't hold her, for the words that he told her, kept coming back time after time".
There's an awful lot going on in there when you look closely, and not all that deeply either - who are we meant to be rooting for in all this? Who are we meant to be feeling sorry for? Who are the bad guys? Country villains usually wear black, but 'Lucille' is cast in varying shades of grey. Nobody comes out of all this with too much credit and none of the characters are particularly likeable. Even the husband comes across as piss-weak in confronting his wife and the whole morally blank tale is unlikely fodder for a number one easy listening country single.
I think a close relative of Lucille would be the unnamed serial womaniser in Bruce Springsteen's 'Hungry Heart':
"Got a wife and kids in Baltimore jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back
Like a river that don't know where it's flowing
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going"
Bruce places his man's motive in devil may care wanderlust (and lust) before admitting "Ain't nobody like to be alone" and his good time bar song makes it sound like a virtue, a sloping shoulders of "Hey, I'm a bloke, what else did you expect"? Lucille's motives are no less selfish and hedonistic than Bruce's yet can anyone really hold her up as a strong female figure to aspire to or a martyr to feminism? In country terms she's the absolute antithesis of Tammy Wynette's feminine ideal in 'Stand By Your Man' but her going against the grain of the norm generates far more finger pointing "how COULD she" comment from her disapproving peers than Bruce.
And that's about as far as I intend wading into the murky waters of sexual politics. For there be dragons. Of course, Rogers' voice and the feint pulse backing of the music serves to pull all the teeth from out of the mouth of the dangerous beast to leave a dribbling mess of soft mouth slobber until the chorus elbows the verses into the long grass to give folk something nice to sing along to. But all the same, 'Lucille' isn't the saccharine pill that many (and yes, I include myself in that) think it is. Like a razor blade hidden in a bar of chocolate, there's no harm done if all you get is a taste of the surface (which is what Rogers' wet lick of a version does), but there will be blood if you bite down hard.
* Both involved miss-singing the words of the chorus. One went 'You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel' while the other involved 'four hundred children and a cock in the tree'. I honestly can't remember how the rest of either joke goes, but I don't imagine they've aged well.
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