Today we're going back not 10, not 25, but 52 years! Back when actors made songs and they didn't end up embarrassing themselves.
Walter Brennan was a lot more well known for his acting career than his music career. But here we have his biggest hit, peaking at number 5 on the Hot 100. That's a hit! So it's worth analysis.
The song isn't about aged tributaries, as you might imagine. It's actually about an old man named Rivers. And it's a really sweet song about Walter Brennan as a kid meeting old Rivers and befriending him.
He had a one-room shack not far from us
And well, we was about as poor as him
He had one old mule he called Midnight
And I'd trailed along after them
It's also a fairly sad song, as (spoiler alert) old Rivers dies at the end. But honestly, it's not that sad of a song because the old man seems resigned to death, even embracing of it.
He'd say, one of these days
I'm gonna climb that mountain
Walk up there among the clouds
Where the cotton's high
And the corn's a-growin'
And there ain't no fields to plow
But they do deliver the news to Brennan rather harshly.
Down at the end my mama said, ''Son
You know old Rivers died.''
"Oh. Oh, thanks mom."
The song's okay, I guess. I suppose you would need to be born in a different time to really appreciate it, but I do get the message and it's told rather well. I just can't say I have a personal connection to it, which pushes it away from being a song I really like. It's nice to step in the way-back machine, though, away from Jason Derulo and Chris Brown and such.
No comments:
Post a Comment