Backyard summer parties where a guitar gets passed around and a line-up forms outside the bathroom when the guitarist starts singing "Me & Bobby McGee".
Say what you want about this song -- how tired you are of hearing it, how it enables those with little or no ability to foist it on us -- but the lyric is great, particularly the second verse; and of that verse, the first line, with its crystal clear image of two contrasting yet complementary materials -- steel and cotton.
I pulled my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana
I was playin' soft while Bobby sang the blues, yeah
Windshield wipers slappin' time, I was holdin' Bobby's hand in mine
We sang every song that driver knew
Kris Kristofferson, who co-wrote the song, says the story came to him after seeing La Strada (1954), but when I hear it now I am reminded more of Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son (1999) than I am of Fellini's movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment