Aha! Another election post!
You'll see.
************************
I never was much for the music of Bruce Springsteen.
I first started reading about rock 'n' roll in 1978 or 1979, when I was 13 or 14. Three or four years before, Jon Landau had written his famous and ridiculously overblown words, "I saw rock and roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen," and folks, it's hard to explain how ubiquitous they still were if you picked up the monthly music rags in 1979 or 1980. But to me, even as I had a lifetime of music listening in front of me, even as the prog I was most into then was in its death throes, and the nascent punk rock music was still years in my future, his much-quoted statement seemed ridiculous. Springsteen's music didn't sound like the future; it sounded like music from the 50's, with saxes taking the lead break, and with, near as my puerile self could tell, puerile boy girl lyrics.
So I wrote the Boss off early on, and I've stayed with it. I've at different times in my life bonded with people over, started long term friendships with friends because of, our shared dislike of the man's music.
But of course there's an exception; there's always an exception, right? For Springsteen and me, the exception is his 1982 solo album, Nebraska. By '82, I was two years into my Neil Young fandom, and Neil had taught me to appreciate the stark acoustic guitar and harmonica thing. Which is what it turned out Nebraska was. So I, for the first and last time, found myself sympathetic with a Springsteen album. The album went to # 3 in the US, which amazes me to this day. No drums, no electric guitars, no synths, lo-fi songs as dark as the cover art, and yet # 3 in the US. Incredible.
Anyway, I myself never bought Nebraska, but I certainly saw the video for "Atlantic City" many times on MTV. And thought it was solid stuff. Maybe the background vocals, they give you this weird kind of Gregorian chant vibe, maybe they could have been excised. But otherwise, solid stuff.
It's a song about resurrection, I think. The promise of it, the hope for it, and most of all, the unlikeliness of it. If you ever watched Boardwalk Empire you'll know that in the early parts of the century, AC experienced a heyday as perhaps the premier resort destination in the world. But by the late '50's, a decline had set in, that was by the mid 70's looking terminal. It was the hopes of reversing this decline, of resurrecting the city as it attempted to compete with Las Vegas, that led the voters of New Jersey to approve gambling for Atlantic City and only Atlantic City in 1976. Springsteen was writing in 1981, only three years after the first casino opened. He makes it clear that the casinos were nice, but that organized crime, mostly because they couldn't equitably divvy things up, had already made a mess of of things.
Our main character, whose luck is dead, and whose relationship with his gal is getting there, and who has "debts no honest man can pay," doesn't really believe a resurrection is in the cards for him, but what else can he shoot for? He buys a bus ticket to AC, and is soon hired by the syndicates to do a job, and "maybe everything that dies someday comes back" is the best he's got. He's thrown in with some bad men, and he doesn't have much hope it'll help.
End scene.
********************************
Hank Williams III recorded his cover of the song in 2000, for a tribute album called
Badlands: A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, that also included contributions by Chrissie Hynde, and Son Volt, and Johnny Cash. It wasn't the most reviewed album of the year, and not all reviews specifically mentioned "Atlantic City," but I think those that did missed what the song does devastatingly well.
Hank III's *real* resurrection came on January 1, 2010, when he was finally out from under his contract with Curb Records, who never saw him as anything more than a spittin' image of his grandpa, and tried to manipulate him, by refusing to release his forays into other types of music, by holding his already submitted tapes hostage, by throwing him into rehab without warrant, anything they could do to cajole him into being the kind of nostalgia act they thought they could market.
But still. In 2002, he placed his Springsteen cover on an album that did represent at least a little bit of a resurrection for him. His debut, 1997's
Risin' Outlaw has a good cover of "Cocaine Blues" I do think, but Williams himself hates
Risin' Outlaw, and considers
Lovesick, Broke, and Driftin' his "real debut." Williams self-produced his second album, and wrote all the songs except the one we're talking about. For the first time Hank at the very least expressed some small freedom of movement under the Curb yoke.
Springsteen's version is basically the same tempo all the way through, but Hank III breaks the song in two. It begins as a trad country waltz, everyone's happy on the Boardwalk and gaming it up, and our hero's on his way, but at about 2:15, III gives out a yodel like his paternal grandfather might have . . . and by the end of it, the song has shifted gears in the saddest possible way1. Whatever hope there had been during the hoedown section is gone, and it's in this dolorous second half with the pedal steel that our main character, he admits to his gal that "last night, I met this guy, and I'm gonna do a little favor for him."
Shit.
*************
So, what does all this have to do with the election?
First, let's say for the record, that Springsteen is, if not necessarily a good guy, hell I don't know him, but at the very least he is a man with politics similar to my own. He supported Obama in '08. He's donated tour proceeds to Amnesty International. He very splashily endorsed Kamala Harris earlier this year.
And how did that go for him, for us, for me?
Well, I've spent most of the last week frantically--enragedly--typing out variations of "For those for whom it's not racism, it's sexism. And for those for whom it's not sexism, it's racism" on different Substacks. Then I would go on about stupidity but that doesn't apply here: neither Springsteen nor Hank III are operationally stupid.
But Hank III is, it appears, racist. It's a funny thing, because "Atlantic City" is a very empathetic song. And I think that racists and Nazis and all them types, their problem is empathy. If you lack the capacity to imagine yourself in their shoes, it becomes easier to wish them ill, right?
Seems to me, you can't listen to "AC" without feeling for our main character. Trapped! And tragic! And if you can't listen to Springsteen's song without your heart going 'awww' how the hell could you possibly play it and still give it a credible reading?
I must simply not know how it works inside a racist's head. Doing research for this post, I was going through some Reddit posts on the guy, and of those who knew Hank's little secret, a lot of them, like most, would post something like, "well, his music sucks, anyway."
But that's the thing: Hank III's music
doesn't suck. The first time I heard his cover of his grandpa's "Ramblin' Man," it literally took the air out of my bellows. I was halfheartedly watching my nephew's softball game with my earbuds in, and suddenly I couldn't breathe from the beauty. I'll never forget it. I had to take off the earphones, exit the bleachers and walk around a bit before I could come back to it. His version of "Wreck of the Old '97" is five star, the best I've ever heard. Don't listen to it on the expressway coz your foot gets *dangerously* heavy. Alright, his metalcore stuff is more hit and miss, some of it is too stoopid for a liberal old man, what can I say, but "Cocaine (What You Like)" is as grinding, as steamroller, as prime SOD.
Because of those songs, and others, I went out to the local firetrap punk rock dive back in 2014 to see the man play. There was no opening band, just Hank III, for three sets. Country & Hellbilly & Assjack. It was a great and exhausting show. I was in the balcony side stage looking down and I was in front, so when he started playing the heavy stuff, I just grabbed the wooden beams and banged my head. For not a brief period. Hot as fuck like it always was before the Culture Room upgraded their AC, but a show like that, sweating bullets, along with the ache in your neck somehow makes it more authentic-feeling.
Point I want to make is after those three sets, after the man had played for three hours, at the point where *I* could barely stand, and I'd had bracing, he came back out onto the stage after the show, basically sat down on the edge of the stage let his sweatslick hair down and shot the shit with his fans for another half hour. To be clear, that kind of thing is not unheard of. I remember being pissed off when I went to see Richard Cheese in Orlando. Jonathan Davis came out and took a table in the lobby and did the same thing, chatting up his fans. Unfortunately, I had to drive home to Miami, but I regretted it, and I said to myself, as I walked out to my car, 'that's the way it's done.' You bond with your fans, instead of being some prick asshole rock star. Back to 2014: I didn't have anything to say to Hank III, and besides I'm a little shy, so I didn't go up to Shelton Hank, to be honest not a lot did, but on top of the incredibly energetic show, him being out there for his fans, just caring enought to fucking do it impressed the hell out of me.
The human heart is just so confounding. Same person who gives out love freely in one context hardens his heart to stone in another. I sure as fuck can't figure it out.
On top of that, I don't have the guts to invalidate my own feelings about the guy's music. Because it moves me. I'm not gonna take that away from myself. I'm not gonna provide the links that prove he's said or done racist things, all his facsist or racist buddies like Phil Anselmo and Unknown Hinson and perhaps even Horton Heat, because it'd be exhausting and sad and this is already gonna be plenty long. Trust me, though, he has. But maybe I'm just gonna think that people are like rubber bands. They expand or contract based on their current environment. Maybe Hank III expanded a bit when he was working with Tom Waits and Les Claypool round about 2012, and maybe now, when he appears to have pretty much lost his muse, maybe now he's contracted. Become smaller in scope, and in heart, goddamnit.
But I don't know, maybe not. I don't feel like looking up the time line. Easy enough to just keep saying I like Hank III's music, true enough to keep listening to the songs that move me, like his version of "Atlantic City."
So I'm just a hypocrite, right? I'm more than willing to paint the 74 million people who voted for Trump with a broad brush labeled 'racism,' but when I come across someone expressing the indubitable item, I back off 'cause it's emotionally easier, and it keeps me from having to cull my stupid record collection.
I don't have an answer for this, and I guess apologies if you've kept reading this thing because you thought I'd suss one out here at the end. I simply don't. I just know that I will not deny two things I know in my heart: a) if you voted for Donald John Trump, you are either racist or sexist because you didn't care and 2) Hank Williams III, whatever his worth as a human being, made music worth listening to.
*****************
1 One song in a completely different genre this rapid time and tone shift into the heartbreaking reminds me of is Mingus'
"The Clown," that one with the narration by Jean Shepherd, where at about 8 and a half minutes the song practically shuts down its melody and its tempo and our "real happy guy" suddenly knows.
File under: Heartbreakers
Posts
