Troy D. Smith
I have long maintained -and still do- that Kris Kristoffersen is the country Bob Dylan (although at times Bob Dylan has been the Country Bob Dylan). Lately I've been on a Bruce Springsteen kick -I've listened to all his studio albums while working over the past couple of months. Also lately, I have been bonding with my grown young'un Finn over "non-mainstream" country music with an Appalachian twist, and I put together a playlist that was heavy on Kentuckian Chris Knight (whom my wife and I saw live just before the 'Rona hit). Listening to a lot of Knight songs right after listening to the complete Boss, I was struck by the thematic and lyric similarities.
My first introduction to singer-songwriter Chris Knight was 20 years ago (three years after his debut album) when his chilling Appalachian murder ballad "Down the River" got heavy airplay on the John Boy and Billy Big Show (which I used to enjoy until around the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when they got increasingly right-wing political -but that's a different story).
I encourage you to seek out all Knight's albums and songs and hear for yourself (he has a brand new album) - but I am pasting below the lyrics to five songs that are constructed around a similar theme. One of them, "Broken Plow," is actually about the Dust Bowl migration, but the rest have a setting that should resonate with anyone from the rural South.
Chris Knight is not a household name... but he damn sure ought to be.
HOUSE AND 90 ACRES
From Chris
Knight, 1998
I've got a house and 90
acres some cattle in the barn
Two kids with no mama, she left in a saleman's arms
A sign by the mailbox says there's an auction in the yard
Born and raised has been damn easy but lately living's
hard
The children miss their mama but there ain't nothing I
can do
If she was all I had to worry about well I'd guess I'd
miss her too
But I've watched my tools and tractor leave in someone
else's hands
I grit my teeth, I'm let 'em go but I won't give up my
land
This house and 90 acres, the only place I've left to stand
My roots are anchored solid, I ain't machinery I'm a man
I'll be here in the morning come pouring rain or sun
This house and 90 acres
What's said is good as done
There's jobs up in the city I could probably drive a truck
Or I could move 300 miles from home but that would be
giving up
Well you know that I ain't leaving if it's just my pride
I save
I might be on the front porch or I might be in a hillside
grave
This house and 90 acres, the only place I've left to stand
My roots are anchored solid, I ain't machinery I'm a man
I'll be here in the morning come pouring rain or sun
This house and 90 acres
What's said is good as done
This house and 90 acres
What's said is good as done
ENOUGH ROPE
From Enough Rope, 2006
Well I work for the city
in the town where I grew up
Some days I run a backhoe, some days I run a dump
If I had other plans on my graduation day
Then several years ago I guess I hauled 'em all away
Yeah I hauled 'em all away
She told me she was
pregnant on the day I turned 18
I did what you’re supposed to do, I bought her a ring
He didn't have to ask us, but he asked us anyway
We stood up and said, "I do." What else were we gonna say?
What else were we gonna say?
Well I'm thankful for the things I have
And all the things I don't
And I've got dreams that will come true
And I've got some that won't
Most the time I just walk the line wherever it goes
'Cause you can't hang yourself if you ain't got enough rope
My boss man is the Mayor. I do just what he asks
I mow the courthouse lawn, watch the prisoners walkin' past
I'm happy to be working, instead of wearin' chains
Like my cousin Willy, he's locked up in La Grange
He's locked up in La Grange
But I'm thankful for the things I have
And all the things I don't
And I've got dreams that will come true
I've got some that won't
Most the time I just walk the line wherever it goes
'Cuz you can't hang yourself if you ain't got enough rope
There's a tavern down
the highway, I go to drink some beers
And wash down all I'm missin' by hangin' around here
Then I drive back to the trailer; I'll make up with my wife
I kiss my sleeping children, and I get on with my life
Yeah I get on with my life
DIRT
From Enough Rope, 2006
Well I would'a bought
my grandpa's
farm
But I couldn't raise quite enough cash
Now
they're cuttin' all the timber down
Turnin'
all the rest to ash
A company came in from
outta state
To building another stinkin' factory
And them county politicians think they know
Just exactly what we need
But I sit down by the highway
I hear those big
cats growl
Where the quail gonna
fly to?
Where will the rabbits run now?
I watch 'em tearin' all to hell what
used to be my church
Tearin' up my grandpa's land
They're
treatin' my grandpa's land like dirt
A few more jobs and a
lot less trees
Gonna put this county in the rat race
Like that's where we want to be
This used to be such a peaceful place
And they'll tell us that they don't pollute
This
shit they dump in the river is perfectly safe
But all the talk in the whole wide world
Could never bring back what they've laid to waste
I sit down by the
highway
I hear those big cats growl
Where the quail gonna fly to?
Where will the rabbits run now?
I watch 'em tearin' all to hell what used to be my church
Tearin' up my grandpa's land
They're treatin' my grandpa's land like dirt
There's an ancient oak
standin' alone
Tryin' to do the work of a thousand trees
Been here since the Cherokee called this home
But it's standin' in the way of a factory
I sit down by the highway
I hear those big cats growl
Where the quail gonna fly to?
Where will the rabbits run now?
I watch 'em tearin' all to hell what used to be my church
Tearin' up my grandpa's land
They're treatin' my grandpa's land like dirt
They're treatin' my grandpa's land like dirt
RURAL ROUTE
From Enough Rope,
2006
I built a fire up on the hill; I sat in the woods and drank
my fill
Talked to God all night, took another shot at setting me right
Then I walked down to the road, filled a beer can full of 22
holes
Then I said goodbye, yeah I said goodbye
I'd go back but I can't
go home, ‘cause the river is up and the road is closed
And there ain't no telephone… at my mothers' house
And all the lights are out… down on the rural route
There
ain't much of nothin' left, this place where I became myself
Ghosts and memories, I'd walk on by but they'd follow me
I'd seen plenty on down the road.
Asked
him if he'd seen my brother… he just said no.
Well I
guess I'd better go
I'd go back but I can't
go home, ‘cause the river is up and the road is closed
And there ain't no telephone… at my mothers' house
And all the lights are out… down on the rural route
I built a fire up on the
hill; I sat in the woods and drank my fill
Talked to God all night, took another shot at setting me right
Then I just walk away, ain't nothin' here I want to remember
anyway
Least not today
I'd go back but I can't
go home, ‘cause the river is up and the road is closed
And there ain't no telephone… at my mothers' house
And all the lights are out… down on the rural route
BROKEN PLOW
From The Jealous Kind, 2003
Load up the old Dodge
truck
We'll leave what we can't sell
Nobody needs a sharecropper's tools
Or a dust filled well
Take you one last look around
Shed you one last tear
For the broken plow, the broken dreams
And the life we're leaving here
Pull the lines down tight
The kids can ride on top of the load
In the cool of the night
They can crawl underneath the tarp
To stay out of the cold
Eleven hundred miles of mountain and sand
We'll cross 'em tired and torn
If this beat up truck can carry us
Far enough away from the storm
We're going to California
There's work there for a man
Too proud to beg for charity
Too poor to make a stand
Pray it's just the land we're losing
Not my life's blood that I leave
On the handles of that broken plow
That haunts me in my
dreams
A man at a roadside station
Don't like dealing with my kind
He'd beat me out of my last dollar
And never look me in the eye
I heard 'em call us Okies
Hell, I don't know what that means
But something tells me the promised land
Ain't as promising as it seems
This restless road is full of strangers
They ain't no stranger than I am
Hardened faces damn the dust and curse the wind
That drove us from this life and home
We'll never know again
On the handles of my broken plow that haunts me in my dreams
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