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Songs that made this country great: "Streets of Laredo", Trad.

  
 
Feverfew
19:19 / 06.01.07
"Aw, hell, we got both types, country and western."

Country music finds itself the target of derogation on a relatively regular basis in the wider world - some of this may be justified, but at it's heart, it's a form of music just as valid as any other. However, the main derogation, as far as I can see, is of 'Modern Country Music', which instead of being meta-country and drawing on what could be a rich, interesting heritage, simply codifies, sterilises and copies the style without the message or the content.

"Streets of Laredo", therefore, is slightly contradictory in terms. The version most easily accessible is that sung by Johnny Cash, found most recently on The Man Comes Around, described as "...the fourth and last album from the Rick Rubin produced 'American' sessions to be released before Cash's death in September 2003", and is described by the Amazon reviewer (not that I claim this to be authoritative, but...) as though it "...may be one of the most autobiographical albums of the 70-year-old singer-songwriter's career."

Even on this album, Streets of Laredo could be pegged as a slight oddity; It sits among covers of NIN, Sting and Depeche Mode covers, and among much more traditional songs such as Danny Boy.

The song itself is also referred to as the "Cowboy's Lament", (wiki), which is a valid, although potted description.

It is my contention that the song can, and should, be viewed on a few levels to bring out the intertwined themes.

I) As a simple country song.

In short, it's a pure country song, in that all it strictly requires is a man and a guitar - piano and drum parts, at least in the Cash version, are kept to a minimum and used for stylistic effect.

II) As a folk song.

The lyrical theme of the song is designed to appeal to an American archetype that no longer exists in reality but lives in the conception of the "Wild West", that conjures forth images of dusty streets, shootouts, card-sharps and whorehouses. In some ways, it's proto-Deadwood in it's teasing out of very specific Cowboy tropes.

III) As a meditation on Death.

The entire song is, obviously, about death, and dying. But on a concurrent layer, it's about facing mortality, whether forced to or not, and how you would like to be treated after you die, and what you would like to be done even after things pass out of your control. The cowboy in question asks that the singer

"Then go write a letter to my grey-haired mother,
"And tell her the cowboy that she loved has gone.
"But please not one word of the man who had killed me.
"Don't mention his name and his name will pass on."

Which is seen as a liberation from the desire for revenge; enigmatically, also, the cowboy says

"I am a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong."

Even though this is not explicitly explained.

In one way, this song could be seen as the quintessential country song, encapsulating the themes of life, death, and contending with your mortality while considering what your life was.

However, I can quite easily see how "Streets" could be seen as overly emotionally concerned - almost twee, in a way, from the way the archetypes are deployed. It is my contention, though, that the song should be viewed as outside of contemporary criticism of country music - because it's not contemporary, as a traditional song, even if the prominent version is. This should be borne out by the lyrics, with discussion of "Jolly Cowboys", "Dancehall Maidens", and that "Once in the saddle, I used to go gay".

Musically, the song is pure ballad, with Cash's delivery working over the guitar, and the fairly strategic deployment of piano and drum in the depiction of the funeral itself used to best effect. It is at it's best because of the simplicity; to introduce any further instrumentation would make the song overwrought.

I'm not going to try to philosophically justify the song as a meditation on mortality - although it almost certainly is - but I would want to defend it from accusations of being Kitsch, Camp and Overwrought, because I feel these would be levelled from a strictly modern, critical standpoint. In the end, it's my contention that the song is a ballad, traditional, pure and simple, that carries a meaning over and above that of the themes of cowboys and the wild west - it's a song, I feel, that tries to make us think of our own mortality, whether we want to or not, and how our time here is arbitrary, and limited. That, and whether we want roses thrown on our coffin.

Anyway; I provide two further things, one, a Yousendit link to a download of the song, and two, the question; can traditional ballads be relevant in a modern context without crossing the nonspecific boundary into 'kitsch'?
 
 
Ticker
20:18 / 06.01.07
well now that was lovely. It didn't feel overwrought to me at all let alone kitch.

Is it the older terms that you fell promote that possibility?
 
 
Jack Fear
20:22 / 06.01.07
One thing to keep in mind is that although the Cash version uses the words most commonly sung today, and may even be the definitive version, it is by no means the only version. There are innumerable variants; and many of them add to your equation another important element of the traditional ballad; not just a Meditation On death, but a Cautionary Tale.

Its purpose is explicitly moral. When the cowboy says "I know I've done wrong," it's partly a function of the culture that spawned the song. Today, it is a rare man indeed who would describe himself firstly as a sinner; but to the Victorian Christian, it was a fact as plain as potatoes. Of course the young cowboy has done wrong; so have we all. The question is whether we, the listeners, can avoid this cowboy's fate.

That fate is made explicit in many variants. In most versions, the young cowboy has been "shot in the breast"; it's usually implied that the altercation that led to his wounding arose from an argument over a game of cards: a caution against gambling. In a few versions, it's implied that the cowboy has been poisoned by bad liquor—a very real danger on the frontier: a caution against drunkenness. My favorite variant includes this verse:

Had she but told me before she disordered me,
Had she but told me of it in time,
I might have got salts and pills of white mercury
Now I'm cut down at the height of my prime.

He's dying of syphilis, not to be too delicate about it: a caution against whoremongering.

Does the traditional ballad still have anything to say to modern society? It's a good question. The ballad itself is a many-faced beast. While Victorian songs like "The Streets of Laredo" do tend towards an excess of pathos, the older Anglo-Irish ballads (such as the ones collected by Sir Francis Child in his famous collection) are notable for their detachment.

That being said, I think a lot of the effect comes from the singer, not the song. Cash, wisely, keeps it spare, and it's greatly effective. Marty Robbins glops it up with reverb and yodelling, and it all turns to mush; then John Cale does a snarling rock version of it, and it's a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon. Because nobody owns these songs, each performer is uncommonly free to put his/her own stamp on them.
 
 
Feverfew
10:30 / 07.01.07
xk: It's partly the older terms that give rise to the possibility that I mentioned, but it's also something else, which I lovingly call (drum roll, please)
The Feverfew Theory of Cross-Cultural Innoculation.

Country Music is classified, in the modern mind, as strictly American in origin and style. It is then my believe that the music's direct appeal is limited to a very specific sector of a very specific audience, unless the form or style is altered to make it more 'radio-friendly'.

Country music's popularity in Britain began, largely, with people of my grandparent's era; my grandmother, for instance, was a great fan of Jim Reeves and, I believe, Hank Williams, and passed this on to other relatives. This was, in part, because of the American military presence following WWII, but also, I believe, because it offered true escapism from the world at large into one of cowboys, dusty plains, vicious vendettas settled by shootouts etc; every archetype that would prove appealing as an escape route when set against post-war Britain.

Country music was therefore used as a cultural bridge in the late forties and early fifties, especially in areas containing American military bases where it was more available, which aided in the integration of British and American culture. While this may sound patronising, consider that the United States War Department issued booklets to this effect in 1942.

However, the problem here is that in many cases, the children of my grandparents, as children are wont to do, rejected the musical tastes of that generation for the newer styles, such as the Beatles, the Stones, etc. Therefore, what was previously an integrating force between Britain and the U.S. (vis. the "Special Relationship", currently) was reversed, as Britain began to become more of a net exporter of music.

Which leads us on to people of my generation, brought up by people who had rejected country music. Consider also that when I was growing up, country music in Britain was expounded by Billy Ray Cyrus, known "for his distinctive mullet", and Garth Brooks. Consider Garth Brook's treatment when he came to Britain by the media of the time; the mid-nineties was not a musical period that allowed for the old style of country music.

So then, back to the point. For me, and for possibly people of my generation, country music has made the long journey from 'music of my parent's parents', to 'radio-friendly unit shifting', to 'almost nonexistent in the nineties' and right back around to the point where Johnny Cash's albums are selling like hotcakes in the wake of Walk the Line.

To me, country music is something exotic, in a way; I like to think I appreciate the simplicity and the lack of a desire to hook people with over-production or controversy. However, in a strictly modern context, country music is stll, somehow, 'the music of my parent's parents', even after all the time has passed, and it's from this that my concern over the idea of 'kitsch' comes from.

It's also, as Jack puts it very well, the possibility of an "excess of pathos" that concerns me regarding the possibility of kitsch. There's only so much emotional weight a song can sustain, in many cases, before it becomes overwrought, and beginning with the protagonist meeting a dying man is a heavy weight to begin with.
 
  
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