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things that keep me up at night
so far as I know the Felice Brothers' new album Yonder Is The Clock has received pretty much all A+ reviews across the world, which is wonderful and I'm happy for my guys, and if one more writer or blogger says that Boy from Lawrence County is about Jesse James, I'm going on a cross-country shooting spree. (there is a Lawrence County in Missouri, but it's nowhere near Clay County, which is where James was from.) the song is about betrayal:
tell me, Judge, what's the bounty
on that boy from Lawrence County?
he's a friend of mine.
if I had a way to trap 'im
would you swear to pay up, Cap'n?
he's a friend of mine.
but the friend is never named. the reference that these morons seem to fixate on is actually a simile that shows up about a verse and a half later:
roll on silver river through the iron rain
past the sleeping trains that wait
gold and amber petals in your water waves
like the band of Jesse James in wait
this is the kind of lazy interpretation that makes me homicidal. I'm sure that using a reference to James in a song about a friend's betrayal was no coincidence, but it also wasn't the point.
tell me, Judge, what's the bounty
on that boy from Lawrence County?
he's a friend of mine.
if I had a way to trap 'im
would you swear to pay up, Cap'n?
he's a friend of mine.
but the friend is never named. the reference that these morons seem to fixate on is actually a simile that shows up about a verse and a half later:
roll on silver river through the iron rain
past the sleeping trains that wait
gold and amber petals in your water waves
like the band of Jesse James in wait
this is the kind of lazy interpretation that makes me homicidal. I'm sure that using a reference to James in a song about a friend's betrayal was no coincidence, but it also wasn't the point.