7. "Childish Things" by James McMurtry (2005)

I don't know why it always makes sense to me to listen to James McMurtry when I am paying bills and working on finances. Maybe there's something grounding in that panhandle Texan baritone brogue, some kind of "cowboy poetry" that speaks to my roots:

Now my boy goes like a house on fire
He’ll never burn out and he’ll never retire
And I remember when I used to think like that
When I was young and the world was flat
But I’m forty some years old now and man I don’t care
All I want now is just a comfortable chair
And to sell all my stock
And live on the coast
I don’t believe in heaven
But I still believe in ghosts.

(From the title track.)

A friend of mine, a displaced Minnesotan, writes a lot in his blog about his perceptions of Texans and how they think from his point of view. He's very insightful. (See The Spanish Medievalist.) I know it's his way of dealing with his own homesickness, and I'm sure he yearns for his own people and is glued to the radio when "A Prairie Home Companion" comes on. By the same token, I'm a Texan so it's somewhat refreshing when a guy like McMurtry speaks to me in my language. On trying to figure out his woman:

She gets a little restless in the spring
She might follow the lines you sing
Bullshit though they are
‘Cause sometimes that’s just the thing
If delivered with panache and a certain grace
Fingertips on satin lace
Cutting cards and quoting Proust
Whatever turns her wild mare loose

(From "Restless".)

I love that line, "cutting cards and quoting Proust". By the way, it was Proust who said, "Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination." Uh, ok.

What I really love about McMurtry, though, is that in the end he always returns to some basic, down-home state, like the guys in "King of the Hill" drinking beer in the alley. Kind of reminds me of my grandpaw (who we called "Papa JuJu"), loading up his pickup and heading out to check the cows because he just couldn't think of anything else to do:

And I’m just a little down tonight
I’m just a little down
A little messed up is all I’m saying
Just a little down tonight
I’m just a little down
But I believe I’ll make it
Believe I’ll make it

(Also from "Restless".)

It's in that mundane world of finances and taxes and everyday crap that I discover that maybe, maybe, when all the work is done, maybe there's something spectacular after all, something to look forward to, something that makes me get up in the morning and say, hey, today's going to be ok, today I'm gonna see something cool, today I'm going to see an elephant:

I’ll borrow the truck from uncle Phil
You know I can drive it well
He won’t need it now that the hay’s all in
Just let me go and see the elephant

Sister she can’t go with me
This is not for her to see
Little brother you’ll get your chance
To go down and see the elephant

(From "See the Elephant".)

What is life, anyway, if it's not just getting to see the next day? That's pretty dern special in itself.

cds