(Lance’s listening notes: I just spent the evening with my wife and a friend at a little bar, in a very little town, Fordoche Louisiana, called the Red Monkey. I loaded up the Juke box with what interested me (no The Jam, Clash or Pixies) which ended up being The Band, Van Morrison, Creedence and Janis Joplin, plus Johnny Cash. Since I have reprised a couple of posts, I thought it would be a good time to bring you once again Robby’s excellent discussion of Sunday Morning Coming Down. Listen at the bottom.)
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
One of the most durable traditions in American popular music is the drinking song. Our national anthem’s melody and structure is based on “To Anacreon in Heaven,” an 18th-century drinking song, a fact that tells me 18th-century drinkers were far more ambitious than we are today, the melody being much more challenging to sing than “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” I guess that’s why we sing the anthem at the beginning of sporting events, anyway: by the 7th inning stretch, everybody would sound like Harry Caray.There are examples of drinking songs, or songs about alcohol and alcoholism, in just about any subgenre of music you could name, but they are easiest to find in the blue-collar genres of country and blues. (I’ll primarily be dealing with country in this post, but my conclusions are probably applicable to blues as well). CMT (Country Music Television) recently did a Top 40 countdown of the best country drinking songs. Outside of blues, is there another subgenre of popular music for which we would even consider making a top 40 drinking songs list? David Allen Coe’s self-described “perfect country song” contained within his barroom hit “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” begins “I was drunk/The night my mom got out of prison” before continuing on to other country cliches like the train and the dog. In the list of those cliches, “I was drunk” comes first.
Even songwriters not primarily associated with country often adopt that style when dealing with the topic of alcohol (Elvis Costello, “The Big Light,” They Might Be Giants, “Alienation’s For the Rich“). Of course there are plenty of non-country drinking songs, but something about the everyday concerns and plainspoken realism of the country genre seems to encourage an honest view of drinking. The “Saturday night” side celebrates getting drunk (Toby Keith, “I Love This Bar,” Jimmy Buffett, “Margaritaville”), but there are a lot more examples of the “Sunday morning” misery side, songs that share a striking similarity in that they admit the attraction of alcohol while honestly acknowledging the damage it does (Merle Haggard, “The Bottle Let Me Down,” Willie Nelson, “Whiskey River,” Jerry Lee Lewis, “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous”).
Contrasted with the standard white-boy rock party anthem (every song by Andrew W. K., Van Halen, “Bottoms Up!”) that valorizes drunkenness, or more interestingly, southern California punk rock, in which drinking alcohol is most often characterized as simply stupid (a dozen or so Black Flag songs, including “Drinking and Driving” and “TV Party”, Dead Kennedys “Too Drunk to F***”) country music’s characterization of alcohol appears to be more honest. The really interesting case is X, a too-little-known Los Angeles band that straddled country and punk, but they are worth a discussion devoted exclusively to them, so Ill just say that X (much like another kind of hybrid, Lynyrd Skynyrd) would fall much more within country than punk, based on their treatment of alcohol in their lyrics.
One of the best examples of the “Sunday morning” drinking song, and one of the finest lyrics in any genre, is Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” recorded most famously by Johnny Cash. I loved this song when I was drinking full-time, but in sobriety I have gained an even greater appreciation for it.
“SMCD” deftly establishes the alcoholic character in its first memorable quatrain, a desolate but funny plainspoken truth of the kind often found in good country lyrics:
Well I woke up Sunday morning,
With no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad,
So I had one more for dessert.
However, the humor fades as the song relentlessly presents an accumulation of grim details that in another context could be considered idyllic: a kid kicking a can, the smells of cooking, a father and daughter on a swingset, and the sound of hymns being sung from a church. The details are harsh in this context because they represent varieties of happiness that the active alcoholic can never achieve. In this moment of clarity, the disparity between the lies the singer tells himself (that “smoking his mind,” i.e. the constant Saturday night lifestyle, is fun, productive, and leads to happiness) and his bleak reality becomes apparent. The cost and consequences of his addiction are sinking in, but the worst heartbreak is that the “lonely bell” (symbolizing the church and community from which he feels excluded) rings across a barrier (the canyons) that he cannot imagine it is possible to cross. Instead, he can only wish that he was stoned to smother the loneliness that he feels when he observes the satisfaction that “normal” people take in everyday life.
In an existence like this, the addict can only look forward to the next high, the next drunk. Beyond that is only the unspoken but deep awareness that “SMCD” hints at in the chorus, that there is “nothin’ short of dyin’” that can be compared to the living death of his Sunday morning isolation. Sometimes, that’s not just an unspoken awareness, it’s an unspoken hope.
While I will cheerfully admit that there’s no accounting for taste—if you don’t like the way country music sounds, there is nothing wrong with that—those who see country music as backward or reactionary or simplistic are themselves ignorant of the depth and richness of the genre. That said, country music itself is to some degree complicit in its “yee-haw/aw shucks” image. If you’ve ever seen an episode of “Hee-Haw” you’ll understand what I mean. Then again, people who think “Hee-Haw” is a genuine, non-satirical representation of the lives of Southern white folks probably also need to have knock-knock jokes explained to them.
“Sunday Morning Coming Down”
(K. Kristofferson)
Well I woke up Sunday morning,
With no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad,
So I had one more for dessert.
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes,
And found my cleanest dirty shirt.
An’ I shaved my face and combed my hair,
An’ stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.I’d smoked my brain the night before,
On cigarettes and songs I’d been pickin’.
But I lit my first and watched a small kid,
Cussin’ at a can that he was kicking.
Then I crossed the empty street,
‘n caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin’ chicken.
And it took me back to somethin’,
That I’d lost somehow, somewhere along the way.On the Sunday morning sidewalk,
Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
‘Cos there’s something in a Sunday,
Makes a body feel alone.
And there’s nothin’ short of dyin’,
Half as lonesome as the sound,
Of the sleepin’ city sidewalks:
Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.In the park I saw a daddy,
With a laughin’ little girl who he was swingin’.
And I stopped beside a Sunday school,
And listened to the song they were singin’.
Then I headed back for home,
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin’.
And it echoed through the canyons,
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.On the Sunday morning sidewalk,
Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
‘Cos there’s something in a Sunday,
Makes a body feel alone.
And there’s nothin’ short of dyin’,
Half as lonesome as the sound,
Of the sleepin’ city sidewalks:
Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.
[youtube]DuQKYOxV_h0[/youtube]
Pingback: A Second Hand Conjecture » Blogging Under the Influence or “BUI”
Anybody who thinks country music is simple blarney ought to try their hand at songwriting. Hey, it can’t be that hard, right? Hah! Here in Nashville, the failed songwriters are trying every job from dishwasher to shoe salesman to keep body and soul together looking for the “hit”.
There’re everywhere – I’ve seen them in almost every company I’ve ever worked for. In some cities, you’d expect wannabee novelists in technical writing positions, but here it’s more often songwriters.
So it’s just not as easy as it sounds to craft a country song. I don’t even like country music, but I can see with my own eyes how hard it is. Any of you who doubt it, put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and craft that ultimate country song. Then honestly compare it to the better lyrics that get recorded and realize that what you’ve written is most likely hackneyed junk.
I think that Kristofferson (along with Paul Simon) ranks among the greatest (and most scarily prophetic) of modern poets. Kristofferson’s "Sunday morning’ coming down" is one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry ever written. The hissing sibilance gives at once a jarring sense of the real world hitting a hangover, and at the same time a haunting sense of wistfulness, a craving for what was once and can never be again (the cosiness of the family, the sense of belonging, the love all explained in the simple phrase "the Sunday smell of someone frying chicken" – can’t you just smell it?!)
One note – in the lyrics you’ve posted, you write the words to the chorus as:
Half as lonesome as the sound,On the sleeping city sidewalks:Sunday morning coming down.
I don’t know, and apologies to Kristofferson if I’ve got it wrong, but surely the word "on" should be "of" – are we not being reminded that the sound the city sidewalks make is silence, thus isolating our "hero" even more. I think this would fit in more with the personification of the "sleeping city sidewalks". Otherwise, we don’t know what "the sound" is. Sorry if this sounds pedantic, but I just adore this song, and have done ever since I first heard it over 25 years ago. I’d like to know if this alteration to the lyrics is correct.
Emma, you are probably correct. I think it is "of the sidewalks." I just didn’t proofread the lyrics before posting. Thanks for your thoughtful response.
How can you beat this song? And I don’t see the surprise in a Rhoades Scholar like Kris K. writing this. With a sharp mind like he has, all he need do is focus on something in his soul and out comes poetic genius. Then, dropping down in J. Cash’s back yard in a helicoptor with this song, why, that is poetry in and of itself. Cheers to Kris and his endearing talents. Next time we’ll talk of Bobby McGee and Take the Ribbon from my Hair. See what I mean? Genius from A to Z. You go, Kris!!!!1
This site covers almost identical stuff… That’s strange…