A Playlist Series

American Crisis Playlist #43

It’s alright, Ma, I’m only…

You might think that the bleeding has stopped. Former and now disgraced Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty this week in the killing (lynching?) of George Floyd. I’d breathe a sigh of relief, but I’d rather accent that I CAN breathe, and for most of my life, have been able to do so without worry that if I do something wrong (I never intentionally passed bad checks, though I didn’t always check to count the total funds in the account on which I was drawing!) I’ll be stopped, arrested, and forced to lie on a city street until the ones apprehending me decide that I’m no longer much of a threat.

The sentencing is still to come, but I’m thinking that for the next 30 or 40 years, Chauvin ought to be kept in some little room, his TV set to eternal “Play,” while an endless loop of the last ten minutes of George Floyd’s life courses past his eyes at maximum volume. With maybe a five-minute break every three hours to use the facilities, knowing what awaits him upon his return.

And then, there’s the case of Blake Bailey, someone who should be held down until he confesses all he’s done. Not that I want anyone to put his knee on Bailey’s throat for nine minutes, but I wish he had to face all the women he’s harmed and atone to them. He’s apparently worried about what the news will do to his wife and young daughter, and much the same way I thought about Brett Kavanaugh’s daughter, I wonder and fear what it has and will be like to grow up under Bailey’s parental auspices, especially knowing that at age thirteen, others in her image were being groomed for sick altercations to come.

I bought his damn biography maybe five days before the stories started emerging.

Now, I want to stick my largest, sharpest butcher’s knife through it.

Not that, you know, I’m a violent sort.

Chauvin will still get a million-dollar pension, and Bailey still has whatever he got in advances from WW. Norton.

And half the country still refuses to get the vaccine, while the former OP is moving his golf services up to his Bedford club in New Jersey soon, because Mar-a-Lago closes in the summer due to the excessive humidity. I can’t make shit like this up because I haven’t had enough coffee yet, and the dogs are screaming to be walked.

Howlin’ is more like it.

And speaking of howlin’ let’s turn now to some tunes that won’t evoke crisis, won’t dismiss or make us forget all the pain out there, but that might put you into a mood for intervention and maybe even some good barbecue — because my grill is open today, I’m very privileged to be here, and I’m more than ready and inspired.

AMERICAN CRISIS PLAYLIST #43

1. “You Gonna Wreck My Life,” Howlin’ Wolf, from More Real Folk Blues (1967). I was trying to find an appropriate Wolf song to kick this off, and it took about three seconds to locate this one. When you consider blues, folk, and rock voices, why would you look anywhere else but here? The Blues have always been about what we do to each other, how we do each other wrong. Given the period/era in this country when this form took off — when segregation and lynchings still ruled — it’s still sadly fitting for us now. The music, the voice, always will be, too. The conditions? We’ll see.
2. “Crawling Kingsnake,” The Black Keys, from an album coming out next month: Delta Kream. When I saw that they had a record coming out soon, I thought about shouting from my porch, a thank you to all who hear and whom I hope will hear. And then I listened. I love how they keep pushing deeper, into blues, a howling lead guitar, hoping to move us out of this place and into some other dank hole. The holes must be felt so that we understand what crawling out feels like, too. So I can’t wait for the rest of this…and is a tour coming, Patrick?
3. “Weightless Again,” The Handsome Family, from Through the Trees (1998). “This is why people OD on pills, and jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. Anything to feel weightless again.” Are you haunted yet? I am, and even though my life is fairly sublime, Sunday night is approaching, my daughter will leave town again, and we’ll sit outside tonight, listening to all the tree frogs and owls, and I’ll wonder why it’s gone this way — this time, this life. And I’ll play more of The Handsome Family, because I can’t get enough.
4. “Sticks That Made Thunder,” The Steeldrivers from The Steeldrivers (2008). Recommended to me by one of my students as she listened last Sunday night to my virtual reading and the songs I chose to ground a theme and center my guided audio tour through that old “S-Town” back home. She wrote me that my Canned Heat selection reminded her of this, and she’s right. The music is sweet, but the singing and the lyrics take us to some other place, to “the ones who’ll never return.” I appreciate sensitive listening and reading, so thank you Kiersten!
5. “On the Road Again,” Canned Heat, from The Very Best of Canned Heat (among other places), in a 2005 re-release. Another fine selection including Al Wilson’s voice, but with a relentless rhythm taking us farther and farther from what we know. and onto roads worth traveling. I hate that this band seems so forgotten, so unappreciated. So show them some love even though they’ll likely not hear you — the ones left, that is. As for Al, he’ll hear you every time from the vapors above.
6. “Breathe (Taylor’s version, feat. Colbie Caillat),” from the re-released Fearless (2021). I woke up this morning, thinking about my playlist and how to find songs that spoke to George Floyd and the horrible way he died. And since my daughter and I were discussing Ms. Swift last night and how listening to this tune, this album, took her back to high school, I think the song and its theme got wedded to my subconscious, so then I saw it this morning, again, and almost didn’t know that I had been searching for it for so long.
7. “Place Names,” Nick Waterhouse from 2021’s Promenade Blue. It’s a cool, almost upbeat tune — “I never cry on cold days, am never set for the big change” — is it Nick’s voice, his style, or is it those background voices, the strings? Where are we? What year? What era? My high school? Do we remember the places that caused us to veer, to swerve, to cry on cold and warm days when we couldn’t get straight, couldn’t understand why people fled when other people who looked unlike them appeared? And speaking of Them!…have you watched it yet (Amazon Prime)?
8. “Another Place, Another Time,” Jerry Lee Lewis, from 1967’s Another Place, Another Time. “Any place would be so much better than that lonely room of mine.” I thought about including The Killer’s hit, “Breathless,” but I don’t want to be accused of beating an old horse, so listen to it, too, if you want. But I love the country killer, and remember when he’d show up on Hee Haw, lantern adorning his piano, and I’d ask my daddy who that was. And Daddy would look at me like one of us was crazy.
9. “Cry to Me,” Solomon Burke from 1964’s Rock ‘N Soul. “When your baby leaves you all alone, and no one calls you on the phone….” I wonder which radio station in my home town played this song back in ’64. WENN? WJLD? WVOK? How far did it cross over? How do we manage to forget such a voice, or did we ever hear it? Shit man, no one in my house played such stuff, and in that way of complaining about the past that I know I’m guilty of, I have to ask why? Though I know I’ll get no answer, or the same one as ever. Got it now, though, and it’s definitely not too late.
10. “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” (1969) Jimmy Cliff from Wonderful World, Beautiful People. So let’s end on a positive note, the first reggae song I ever heard back when I was thirteen, riding home from school with my mom and my friend Robert. I didn’t recognize the sound, the background, but I knew I loved it. My nature sang out, even though we were supposed to be entering that brooding stage, Robert and I. I guess we brooded, and then secretly sang along to this one whenever we could. And I’ll do so now, too, despite everything in the outer zones.

So glad to know that The Riff has exceeded 500 followers! Don’t it make you feel so good? Let’s clap for Noah Levy, Rob Janicke, Kevin Alexander, Harry Male, Frank Mastropolo, Steven Hale, S.W. Lauden, If Ever You’re Listening, MDSHall, Cherie Jamison, Kathryn Dillon, Mike Marolla, Jessica Lee McMillan, TheWellSeasonedLibrarian, Gary Chapin, Keith R. Higgons, Kathy Gerstorff, Sarah Paris, Alexander Briseño, Holly J See, Christopher Robin, and others too numerous to name, though I’ll keep trying!

Here is the entry from last week:

https://readmedium.com/american-crisis-playlist-42-e15af05d98fc?sk=1c58242d28a6ed556e26c0456e331752