Nobody’s Fault But Mine, Blind Willie Johnson

I got a cracked rib

I got 2 teenage daughters

I got a roof over my head

I got my bills paid and money left over

I have sight in both of my eyes, parents who loved me

but still I got the blues sometimes

The only Bible I have is a Gideons that I bet my dad lifted from a hotel room, back in the day, like 50 years ago

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the spirit’s binding seam

the road through the middle of several farm fields in Hadley on which there is a road sign stating Drifting Snow in black letters on a yellow background with 2 squiggly black lines: in a normal winter, yes. This winter? ironic

the sign at the car wash on Rte 9 heading west just after the I-91 S entrance: ouchless Car Wash. They’ve put back the letter T, but they didn’t really need to, did they?

I see red tails all the time on the telephone lines next to Bay Rd, the hawks surveying the ground for mice and voles, anything, nothing

This clip is not ironic, but it is brilliant, one of my favorites from one of my favorites. That Wes Anderson knows his shit.

This is brilliant, too

I like to think that I’m not as big a fan of The Who as any male could be. I certainly listened to my share of The Who in high school and college. I even saw them at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1980, after the Cincinnati trampling tragedy. My parents were understandably freaked out, but I still went. It was only half of the Silverdome, seating 40,000 instead of 80,000. When I write this, I don’t believe any of it. Not the year, not the numbers, not that I was there, not that I shirked off my parents’ concerns with a teenage disrespect I now understand from the other side.

The Who=Cock Rock

I had tickets to see Led Zeppelin when I was in high school and then Jon Bonham OD’d. Man was I pissed.

Led Zeppelin, although also Cock Rock, still works for me more than The Who.

How can I predict what music I’ll still like in a year? In thirty?

I can say with some assurance that I will never tire of Led Zeppelin’s In My Time of Dying and I think it might be their greatest recording and also one of the finest recorded examples of that particular gospel tune. Robert Plant’s pleading is the heart of the heart of gospel. I love when the drums kick back in to rejoin his a capella solo.

I did look up Blind Willie Johnson’s version, but I am more familiar with him singing “John the Revelator” from the Harry Smith recordings. Amazing.

I notice the slowing of my mental sharpness. I can’t remember lines with any facility like I could in high school. Ironically, I didn’t do any acting from then to about 10 years ago and now I can’t remember lines without a shitload of rehearsing.

Will I eventually be like my mother? How can she last to 97 years like her own mother? That’s 20 more years. I don’t see it. I don’t like it.

Originally, I was going to title this post “oh, the irony” or “small ironies” or “bitter irony” but I couldn’t come up with enough ironic things

And am I born to die? To lay this body down/ And must my trembling spirit fly, into a world unknown?

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