Author: chimesfreedom

Editor-in-chief, New York.

Modern Murder Ballads: “Becky’s Bible”

Kentucky singer-songwriter Chris Knight created a rare classic modern murder ballad with his song, “Becky’s Bible,” about a killer on the run.

Becky's Bible In the 1600’s, a significant number of ballads in Europe told stories centering around a killing.  This category of “murder ballads” soon took root in America, as settlers brought some of the Old World songs to the new while also creating new classics.  Something about the blood and the conflict, tied up with tragedy, have made many of these songs endure.

Today, we get most of our blood and guts from movies and TV.  Pop stars are not likely to sing about murder and mayhem.  Yet, the murder ballad does live on in other genres like hip hop and country music, areas of music that are more willing to explore the human condition.

One of my favorite modern murder ballad’s is Chris Knight‘s “Becky’s Bible.” The song appeared on his album A Pretty Good Guy, which had the unfortunate release date of September 11, 2001.

“Becky’s Bible” begins with one of the great opening lines: “Let the beer bottle / Rattle on my pistol / On the seat of my Chevy pick up truck.”  He thus captures three country music tropes — beer, guns, and trucks — in one line that also sets up a wonderful tale.

There does not seem to be an official video for the song, but here is a decent fan-made video.

The song does not focus on the crime, though.  Instead, we join the singer while he is on the run.  We get the idea that the singer was accused of cheating at cards and then somehow it escalated into gunfire.

The wonderful part of the song is that Knight is able to make the listener more interested in the fleeing man than in the crime. The singer tells us his plan for running, but he recognizes that he will eventually get caught.  We sympathize with him because his thoughts keep going back to his girlfriend or wife.

I don’t wanna see the daylight;
But my Becky is alone tonight;
I wonder if she’s waiting up for me.

Soon, his thoughts turn to wondering if Becky’s Bible is in his truck’s glove box. “Cause I’m sure gonna need it if that boy died.”

It is still night and the singer is still on the run when the song ends. So we do not know if he is eventually caught, but we have clues from the singer’s certainty of his impending doom.

We care about him, though, because he cares about Becky. Although throughout the song he has recounted how his best chance for escape lies in it staying dark, at the end, he wishes for daylight because it might bring some comfort to Becky. “I’ll be prayin’ for some daylight, / Because my Becky’s alone tonight.”

Here is a live version, although you can barely hear Knight because of the fans singing along. The song has a wonderful catchy tune, so I can’t say I blame them.

Knight’s more recent album is Little Victories (2012) which we reviewed here.

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    Damien of Molokai . . . With Music By Tom Russell

    Tom Russell’s concept album The Rose of Roscrae tells the story of an young man who flees Ireland to become an outlaw on the American frontier.  During the outlaw’s travels, he hears about Father Damien, a priest in Hawaii who works with lepers.  And he dreams of joining him.

    Father Damien was a real person who was born as Jozef De Veuster on January 3, 1840.  As portrayed in Russell’s story, Damien was a Roman Catholic Priest from Belgium.  And he did leave his native Belgium to minister to people with leprosy in what then was the Kingdom of Hawaii.

    Russell’s songs about Damien led me to want to know more about him. Lately, I have been reading The Life and Letters of Father Damien, Apostle of the Lepers.

    Father Damien became known around the world for his work even while he was still alive.  With the fame also came some criticism, often highlighting the struggles between the natives of the islands and the influence of the Europeans and Americans.

    Tom Russell’s Father Damien

    In Tom Russell’s songs about Father Damien, he makes reference to the criticisms.  And he also mentions that poet Robert Louis Stevenson defended Damien.  It is true that Stevenson, who visited Hawaii after Damien’s death, became an admirer of Damien’s work and wrote about him.

    In “The Hands of Damien,” Russell’s protagonist Johnny Behind-the-Deuce reacts to hearing about the work of Father Damien. The discovery that someone like Damien exists helps Johnny begin to seek his own redemption.

    In another song, Johnny hits a low point and imagines seeking guidance from Father Damien.  The song is “Damien (A Crust of Bread, A Slice of Fish, A Cup of Water).”

    Tom Russell wrote about “Damien” on his Facebook page:

    “We read “Damien the Leper,” in high school. Written by Mia Farrow’s father, film director John Farrow. I always thought this guy took it to the Western limit…the edge…a leper colony on Molokai. He was from Belgium. Robert Lewis Stevenson defends him. Johnny Behind the Deuce is gonna join him but never makes it . . . he returns to Ireland.”

    I was a little surprised to read Russell reveal Johnny never made it to meet Father Damien. As in all song cycles, the story is a little cryptic at times.  But I had imagined that Johnny actually had gone to meet Father Damien at some point in his life.

    After working with people with leprosy for sixteen years, Father Damien eventually contracted leprosy himself, dying of the disease on April 15, 1889.

    Tom Russell is not the only fan of Father Damien. India’s Mahatma Gandhi was inspired by this “martyr of charity.” April 15 is now a holiday known as Father Damien Day in Hawaii.   Father Damien was eventually canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XVI on October 11, 2009.

    For more on Father Damien, the following video summarizes his life story.

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    D.L. Menard: “The Back Door”

    The Back Door Cajun music singer-songwriter D.L. Menard recently passed away on July 27, 2017. By all reports, Menard was a warm and engaging man who always had time for his fans. His most popular recordings include “Under the Oak Tree,” “Rebecca Ann,” “Bachelor’s Life,” “La Valse de Jolly Rogers,” and “She Didn’t Know I Was Married.” But his most endearing legacy may be “The Back Door” (“La Porte En Arrière”) which he wrote and performed for audiences around the world.

    Menard was born Doris Leon Menard in Erath, Louisiana on April 14, 1932. He began performing music at the age of 17, and he met Hank Williams at the age of 18. Menard, who continued through his musical career to work as a craftsman, became a world-wide ambassador for Cajun music, so that he is sometimes called “The Cajun Hank Williams.”

    “The Back Door” (“La Porte en Arrière”)

    He wrote his biggest hit, “The Back Door,” during a shift working at a gas station. Menard’s song is about sneaking back home after a night of partying. It became a hit in 1962.  And music fans today recognize the song as one of the most popular Cajun songs of all time.

    Menard talks about “The Back Door” and then performs it in the video below. Even if you do not recognize the title of the song, you might recognize it once you hear it. Either way, it will make you want to get up and two-step.

    Menard drew inspiration for “The Back Door” from Hank Williams’ “Honky Tonk Blues.” In the audio recording below, Williams sings “Honky Tonk Blues” live at The Grand Ole Opry in 1952.

    You may hear a connection in the liveliness of both songs.  Check out the Hank Williams song.

    In 2014, Rolling Stone listed Menard’s “The Back Door” (“La Porte en Arrière”) as the 72nd greatest country song of all time. It was even ahead of that other wonderful Cajan classic, Harry Coates’ “Jole Blon,” which was at 99 (and which even Bruce Springsteen recorded with Gary U.S. Bonds).

    What is your favorite D.L. Menard song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Marty Brown Live in Calgary 1992

    Marty Brown Calgary

    This video gem captures country singer-songwriter Marty Brown performing several songs in 1992, long before he became a fan favorite on America’s Got Talent. The show is from an appearance at Longhorn Dance Hall in Calgary, AB, Canada.

    Brown sings songs such as “Don’t Worry Baby,” “My Wildest Dreams,” “Your Daddy’s Long Gone,” Hank Williams’s “Honky Tonkin’,” and “Honey I Ain’t No Fool” (one of my favorites, starting at the 13:26 mark).

    [2018 Update: Unfortunately, the Calgary show is no longer available on YouTube. So, below is a clip from the same year of Brown singing “I Had a Dream.”]

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    The Wrong “American War”? (Book Review) (Guest Post)

    Omar El AkkadThe following book review is a Guest Post by Russ Miller, an expert on literature, film, and other things.  Russ grew up in the West and currently lives in Virginia.

    I just finished the absorbing and well-paced debut novel American War by Omar El Akkad.  It depicts a dystopian future centered on a second American civil war between the northern “blues” and the southern “reds.”  The war’s personal and national tragedy is related through the experiences of one ordinary southern family that ends up having a profound role in the conflict.

    American War’s Division

    The fissures leading to another fratricidal conflagration are mostly unexplained and unexplored.  We all know what they are – drawing as they do on the Republic’s historical, entrenched, accumulated animosities and resentments.  But the match that ignites the dry tinder this time (it is the late 21st century) is the southern states’ refusal to comply with a federal ban on the use of fossil fuels.

    The ban on fossil fuels comes too late in any case.  Global warming and the resulting rise in sea levels has left the North American continent submerged and scorched in equal measure.  Florida is already under water and the national capital has long-ago removed to Columbus, Ohio.  These conditions exacerbate the conflict.  But the cause isn’t climatic.  It is something deeper.

    American War: A novel is getting well-deserved positive reviews.  El Akkad is a Canadian-Egyptian journalist who makes terrific use of his foreigner’s objectivity towards the U.S. and the harrowing experience he’s made reporting from some of the world’s intractable conflicts.

    El Akkad brilliantly converts most of our contemporary pathologies into grist for the book’s plot:  drone wars and torture; refugee camps and foreign-supported insurrections; and the obvious nod to today’s seemingly irreconcilable hostility between “reds” and “blues.”

    Today’s Real Divide

    Still, the book’s crux – a revival of America’s north/south hostility – misses its mark.  As the last presidential election made clear, the real divide in this riven and disconsolate country centers on values and political perspectives.  The fault-line defies geography.  As Robert Kaplan reveals in his new book “Earning the Rockies,” red and blue American are not places but deeply-rooted states of mind keyed to questions of cosmopolitanism, identity-politics, and faith.  Central Mississippi now is aligned with central Pennsylvania and Central Idaho.  Similarly, New York now is aligned with Minneapolis and Lexington, Kentucky.  Mason and Dixon can’t explain Donald J. Trump’s victory, at least not as neatly as El Akkad hopes.  And besides, aren’t the northern fracking fields of Pennsylvania and North Dakota the heart of America’s new oil boom?

    To have served as a more effective critique (or cautionary parable) of our current desperate condition, El Akkad’s book would have done better to imagine a future of secular, progressive North American mega-city-states (northern and southern) that observe their own laws (Seattle may be marking the path for this) as part of a cosmopolitan, global, “blue” archipelago – a modern Hanseatic League.  The “red” rural rest should  have been portrayed as an exploited and disparaged class kept poor and at bay by brutal repression, walls, and humiliating check-points (in the way that Israel “manages” the occupied territories today).  The hinterlands would serve and resent the cities under the regressive, self-interested, and corrupt “governance” of sectarian chieftains or warlords (wouldn’t this be the Southern Baptist Convention).  Contemporary London – simply “The City” – on one hand, and present-day Syria and Iraq, on the other hand.  Those are the models for the conflict El Akkad imagines, not Charleston and Gettysburg.

    El Akkad has the right idea.  I also regret our internecine, seemingly incommensurable divisions.   But he dares too little with the truth of our current malaise.  To have seen the heart of that, El Akkad need not have traveled to Alabama.  The short trip from his home “just south of Portland, Oregon” to Oregon’s Grant County (Portland and Multnomah County were exact mirrors of Grant County in the 2016 presidential election results) – east and not south – would have done the trick.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

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