Brucemas 2.11
Today, my favorite song from Magic. "Long Walk Home."
I talked about this song a little bit the other day in conjuction to "Highway Patrolman," so this post won't get into all that.
I think you can take two readings on this song, straight-up story-song and political. I don't recall Bruce confirming the political reading anywhere, though he did for most of the rest of Magic, so I can't say if it's intentional or not. It just occurred to me the second or third time I heard it. I like the plain-story reading better, but you know. Alternate POVs are fun. Straight reading first, then talking about politics.
Last night I stood at your doorstep
Trying to figure out what went wrong
You just slipped somethin' into my palm
Then you were gone
I really have no idea what that is talking about. It's kind of a vague suggestion of maybe romantic backstory, but whatever it is, it doesn't get followed up. I don't think this is a young man's song. Which makes sense because it's later-written (though not written specifically for Magic; the earlier version of this song has a coda kicker that makes it *quite* sad and bleak and I reject it because it makes me sad). This is somebody who knows how the cycle of fuck-up, figure it out, fix it if you can and deal if you can't works.
I could smell the same deep green of summer
Above me the same night sky was glowin'
In the distance I could see the town where I was born
The idea that summer smells like green makes me happy. I don't associate smells and colors that way, but it's as good a description for it as any. And evocative. Which is what makes it, um, you know, music. Wow, I'm insightful today.
That it's the town where he was born is important. This is a song about going back to the beginning, to where you came from. Not necessarily where you live; it's the town where he was born, not where he lives now. Heart-home, not necessarily body-home. Going back to something deeper.
It's gonna be a long walk home
Hey pretty Darling, don't wait up for me
Gonna be a long walk home
A long walk home
Going back to something deeper is hard. And you have to do it alone. They can't come with you and they might as well not wait up, because you don't know how long you're going to be.
In town I passed Sal's grocery
The barbershop on South Street
I looked into their faces
They were all rank strangers to me
The veterans' hall high up on the hill
Stood silent and alone
The diner was shuttered and boarded
With a sign that just said "gone"
The reviews all made a big deal out of the use of the phrase "rank strangers." It's old! It's obscure! He probably got it out of working on Seeger Sessions! Uh, except this song was written before that, the phrase isn't all that hard to figure out, and he probably got it from an old movie. Reviewers are idiots.
The grocery (independent, note, not a Kroger), the barbershop, the veteran's hall. Again with tied into the cultural mythos, constructed Americana, archetypes. The stuff you'd see in Capra movies and Rockwell paintings. And it's all either empty or strange/foreign to the narrator's eyes. Has it changed, or has he? Since he's the one trying to find his way back, presumably it's him. The emptiness and strangeness is, of course, symbolic, representing his own inner changes as well as/instead of the passage of time. Or, well, not. Who the hell knows?
There's also the option that it's not a literal return at all. He could be flipping through newspapers, or just thinking back, and as he realizes which figures are dead or moved on, they vanish from his mental image. I like that option too.
Here everybody has a neighbor
Everybody has a friend
Everybody has a reason to begin again
It's never too late. Other people can help if you let them try. Those twin threads of hope run through all of the Bruce canon, no matter how hopeless things are on the surface of any given song. Except maybe "Nebraska."
My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town
It's a beautiful place to be born
It just wraps its arms around you
Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone.
That you know flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't."
And here we tie back into the fathers and sons theme-stream of Bruceworld, myths handed down personally. The idea of the golden age, that once upon a time things were bright and warm and friendly and perfect and good. Were they? Probably not. But cultures need a golden age. Every human culture invents one, sets it a certain way back in the past, and wishes they could go back there again. It's part of what art and culture *do*; invent a better thing we should try to go back to. Nostalgia is as much or more a driving force of humanity than progress.
As for the political reading...this verse is kind of the linchpin of that. Calling up the flag, specifically, and how it means things, things that are set in stone/Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't. Given that other songs on the album he has confirmed are specifically meant to reference current political events, loss of civil liberties, use of torture, and so on...there's a good chance that's a shout-out, too. And that long walk home is trying to get back to where we, collective, America, came from, the ideals that are abstract and mythic and nostalgic and golden-age as well. Tryin' to figure out what went wrong. Bruce would say it was the election of 2000. I'm not exactly arguing. But I can't help but think about what I just said above, that every human culture makes up these stories, this golden age, this time we try to go back to. A destination for our long walk home.
Every ideology, every way of thinking has that story to tell. None of them are more or less true than any other. Every tradition has its artists putting the stories to music or canvas or film, trying to make them more beautiful and more painful than the other guy's, trying to get deeper into the hearts of the group. And it's going to go back and forth as to which side wins at any given time, because we're fallible and we're foolish and as a species we don't have it figured out at all yet.
We're just walking along, alone, hoping at some point we'll reach our destination and someone waited up for us anyway. Because the big stories, the grand ideologies, the myths we choose to follow...those are important, but they're not *as* visceral and heart-deep and immediately important as having our people, our places, the concrete and solid and warm and real that get us through the day to day.
I talked about this song a little bit the other day in conjuction to "Highway Patrolman," so this post won't get into all that.
I think you can take two readings on this song, straight-up story-song and political. I don't recall Bruce confirming the political reading anywhere, though he did for most of the rest of Magic, so I can't say if it's intentional or not. It just occurred to me the second or third time I heard it. I like the plain-story reading better, but you know. Alternate POVs are fun. Straight reading first, then talking about politics.
Last night I stood at your doorstep
Trying to figure out what went wrong
You just slipped somethin' into my palm
Then you were gone
I really have no idea what that is talking about. It's kind of a vague suggestion of maybe romantic backstory, but whatever it is, it doesn't get followed up. I don't think this is a young man's song. Which makes sense because it's later-written (though not written specifically for Magic; the earlier version of this song has a coda kicker that makes it *quite* sad and bleak and I reject it because it makes me sad). This is somebody who knows how the cycle of fuck-up, figure it out, fix it if you can and deal if you can't works.
I could smell the same deep green of summer
Above me the same night sky was glowin'
In the distance I could see the town where I was born
The idea that summer smells like green makes me happy. I don't associate smells and colors that way, but it's as good a description for it as any. And evocative. Which is what makes it, um, you know, music. Wow, I'm insightful today.
That it's the town where he was born is important. This is a song about going back to the beginning, to where you came from. Not necessarily where you live; it's the town where he was born, not where he lives now. Heart-home, not necessarily body-home. Going back to something deeper.
It's gonna be a long walk home
Hey pretty Darling, don't wait up for me
Gonna be a long walk home
A long walk home
Going back to something deeper is hard. And you have to do it alone. They can't come with you and they might as well not wait up, because you don't know how long you're going to be.
In town I passed Sal's grocery
The barbershop on South Street
I looked into their faces
They were all rank strangers to me
The veterans' hall high up on the hill
Stood silent and alone
The diner was shuttered and boarded
With a sign that just said "gone"
The reviews all made a big deal out of the use of the phrase "rank strangers." It's old! It's obscure! He probably got it out of working on Seeger Sessions! Uh, except this song was written before that, the phrase isn't all that hard to figure out, and he probably got it from an old movie. Reviewers are idiots.
The grocery (independent, note, not a Kroger), the barbershop, the veteran's hall. Again with tied into the cultural mythos, constructed Americana, archetypes. The stuff you'd see in Capra movies and Rockwell paintings. And it's all either empty or strange/foreign to the narrator's eyes. Has it changed, or has he? Since he's the one trying to find his way back, presumably it's him. The emptiness and strangeness is, of course, symbolic, representing his own inner changes as well as/instead of the passage of time. Or, well, not. Who the hell knows?
There's also the option that it's not a literal return at all. He could be flipping through newspapers, or just thinking back, and as he realizes which figures are dead or moved on, they vanish from his mental image. I like that option too.
Here everybody has a neighbor
Everybody has a friend
Everybody has a reason to begin again
It's never too late. Other people can help if you let them try. Those twin threads of hope run through all of the Bruce canon, no matter how hopeless things are on the surface of any given song. Except maybe "Nebraska."
My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town
It's a beautiful place to be born
It just wraps its arms around you
Nobody crowds you, nobody goes it alone.
That you know flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't."
And here we tie back into the fathers and sons theme-stream of Bruceworld, myths handed down personally. The idea of the golden age, that once upon a time things were bright and warm and friendly and perfect and good. Were they? Probably not. But cultures need a golden age. Every human culture invents one, sets it a certain way back in the past, and wishes they could go back there again. It's part of what art and culture *do*; invent a better thing we should try to go back to. Nostalgia is as much or more a driving force of humanity than progress.
As for the political reading...this verse is kind of the linchpin of that. Calling up the flag, specifically, and how it means things, things that are set in stone/Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't. Given that other songs on the album he has confirmed are specifically meant to reference current political events, loss of civil liberties, use of torture, and so on...there's a good chance that's a shout-out, too. And that long walk home is trying to get back to where we, collective, America, came from, the ideals that are abstract and mythic and nostalgic and golden-age as well. Tryin' to figure out what went wrong. Bruce would say it was the election of 2000. I'm not exactly arguing. But I can't help but think about what I just said above, that every human culture makes up these stories, this golden age, this time we try to go back to. A destination for our long walk home.
Every ideology, every way of thinking has that story to tell. None of them are more or less true than any other. Every tradition has its artists putting the stories to music or canvas or film, trying to make them more beautiful and more painful than the other guy's, trying to get deeper into the hearts of the group. And it's going to go back and forth as to which side wins at any given time, because we're fallible and we're foolish and as a species we don't have it figured out at all yet.
We're just walking along, alone, hoping at some point we'll reach our destination and someone waited up for us anyway. Because the big stories, the grand ideologies, the myths we choose to follow...those are important, but they're not *as* visceral and heart-deep and immediately important as having our people, our places, the concrete and solid and warm and real that get us through the day to day.