Surprise-- to me.
These songs were recorded only seven years apart and both are by strong, independent
female artists, and both are unusually polished and crisp recordings with
outstanding session musicians. They even have similar intros, one with steel guitar,
one with electric. And they are both about women on the cusp of breaking out. But Judy Collins is waiting for her man to make her life happen; Emmy Lou
Harris is about to make it happen for herself. Both feel constricted
by their families, and can't wait to leave and stretch out their minds, if
not their bodies. First, from "One of These Days".
I won't have to chop no wood
I can be bad or I can be good
I can be any way that I feel
One of these days
And from "Someday Soon".
My father says that he will leave me crying
But I would follow him right down
The toughest road I know
Someday soon, going with him, some day soon....
Judy Collins was a soulful interpreter of great songs by the outstanding
singer- songwriters of the 60's, Dylan, Cohen, Rush, Ian Tyson. She was a
romantic, and I personally found her a bit suffocating at times-- too many
whale songs and saturated memories of
dreamy trips to Paris or smudgy interior emotional landscapes. Emmy Lou Harris
leaned a bit to country, and added some memorable background vocals to Gram Parsons,
Neil Young, and Dylan. Her songs are always tasteful and restrained-- she resisted the
temptations that made very good singers like Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn go
very bad.
Might be a woman that's dressed in black
Be a hobo by the railroad track
I'll be gone like the wayward wind one of these days
Unlike Collins, the narrator of "One of These Days" isn't counting on being
rescued by some man. She's going to break out on her own, and be her own person.
Collins' narrator is waiting for her cowboy to come so she can follow him
wherever he goes. Okay-- the song was written by a man, Ian Tyson, after
all, whose woman,
Sylvia Fricker, eventually chose not to follow anymore. In fact, Sylvia Tyson
basically decided she could be "any way that I feel" and went to work for the CBC in
Toronto while Ian cooled his cowboy heels at his ranch in Alberta, writing
soulful ballads about how wonderful it was to ride your horse, look at the
mountains, and live alone.
So should I add
Sylvia Fricker's "River Road", another fine song about escape, into the mix?
Here I go, once again
With my suitcase in my hand
And I'm running away down River Road...
Once again, like Harris, she isn't waiting around for the cowboy.
There's an odd verse in "River Road":
Well I married a pretty good man
And he tries to understand
But he knows I've got leaving on my mind these days...
When I heard that line, I immediately thought, "the man is real". She's talking about
someone real, whom she knows will hear the song-- he's "a pretty good man", and she pulls her
punches: she doesn't want to hurt him too much. But she has leaving "on her mind" these days... This isn't The
Dixie Chicks' "Earl". This is a mature woman who is tired of
having to account for where she is, what she's doing, where's she going,
where is she going to be, what's she going to do, when are you here, when
are you coming, what's for dinner:
When I get that urge to run
I'm just like a kid again
A 12-year-old jail-breaker running away...
And we can add one more: Lucinda Williams' "Side of the
Road". The narrator tells her man to pull over, she needs to get out
of the car and stand in the tall wet grass and be alone--.
I wanna know you're there,
but I wanna stand alone
If only for a minute or two
I wanna know what it feels like to be without you
I wanna know the touch of my own skin
Against the sun, against the wind...
Okay -- two more: isn't the marvelous "Anchorage" by
Michelle Shocked really about the same thing, contrasting two women who made
different choices? Her friend:
Hey, 'Chell, I think I'm a
housewife...
...New York City, imagine that!
What's it like to be a skateboarding punk-rocker?
...Leroy says hello
Leroy says, send a picture...
[added 2009-12] And always, always, always, the
Leroys of the world say "send a picture". We want to see this; we want
to see what it's like to escape, because we don't generally have the courage
or determination to do it ourselves.
[added 2012-07] Oh, what the heck: let's not leave out Joan
Armatrading (Me Myself I):
I set here by myself
And you know I love it
I don't need someone
To come pay a visit
I wanna be by myself
I came in this world alone
Me myself I.
