While passing out copies of some of my CDs to the local 6:30 AM coffee club and Republican Caucus at the Barrington, Illinois McDonald's, one of the charter club members was kind enough (thoughtful enough, and insightful enough) to present to me a CD of 18 of his favorite Australian songs, asking me in particular for my opinion of song #14, lyrics to which are shown below. Haunting.
You say, “Well met again, loch keeper,
we're leavin' even deeper than the time before.”
“Oriental logs and tea brought down from Singapore.”
As we wait for my loch to cycle I say “My wife has given me a son!”
“A son!” you cry, “Is that all that you've done?”
She wears boganvillia blossoms, you pluck 'em from her hair
and toss them in the tide. Sweep her in your arms and carry her inside.
Her sighs catch on your shoulder,
her moonlit eyes grow bold and wiser through her tears.
And I say to you, “How could you leave her for a year?”
“So come with me,” you cry,
“to where the Southern Cross rides high upon your shoulder.”
“Come with me,” you cry, “each day you tend this loch, you're one day older.
“While your blood grows colder.”
But that anchor chain's a fetter, and with it you are tethered to the foam.
And I would not trade your life for one hour, our own.
Sure I'm stuck here on the seaway,
while you compensate for leeway through the trades.
And you shoot the stars that see the miles you've made.
And you'll laugh at the hearts you've riven,
But which of these has given us more love or life:
You - your tropic mates? Or me - my wife?
“So come with me,” you cry,
“to where the Southern Cross rides high upon your shoulder.”
“Come with me,” you cry, “each day you tend this loch, you're one day older.
“While your blood grows colder.”
But that anchor chain's a fetter, and with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I would not trade your life for one hour, our own.
Yes that anchor chain's a fetter and with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I would not trade your life for one hour, our own.
First of all, Roger, THANK YOU for sharing this wonderful collection of Aussie tunes (many of which I have heard in the Irish bars of Chicago and the outlying environs; but, after all, who are the Anglo-Aussies except for the crminial element of the British Isles who unto whom was given the “freedom” to develop a new land where only tiny little beastie peoples lived along with animals unknown to the European Continent (the Koala, the Kangaroo, and the Krokodile).
Now, the real reason behind “freeing” this criminal element was economic. It was cheaper to ship 'em (many in fact were political prisoners – as in, yuck! The Irish!) to Australia to fend for themselves than to feed and house 'em on the tit of Albion's Shore. Somehow or another, the Aussies gained higher status (they were after all quite a bit further away) than the Irish, always the lowliest of white peoples (well, in Appalachia the Scots-Irish are pretty lowly too – in fact, they fared fare less well state side, as history played out – the ones that live there, in Appalachia, to this day, mining for coal, workin' for slave wages (if that's all the ambition they got, that's all the money they deserve, n'est ce quc pas?).
SONG # 14 – WOW!
This amazingly textured / layered / story / poem / epic / conversation is virtually impervious to interpretation unless you can see the lyrics. Thus, I have taken the liberty, while admitting that my hearing is not what it once was (I once interpretted the line “I'm a mixed up shook up girl,” as “I'm a mixed up sugar curl”) of presenting my best hearing of these wondrous lyrics.
This was a most rewarding exercise, as I listend and typed, and then listened and edited, and then listened and punctuated, and then listened, and tried to get the words and fonts correct. Because what emerged is one of those best stories as told by the best story tellers, which I'll exemplify by this line, from the movie CHINATOWN: “What do you expect? It's Chinatown.” That best story as told by the best story tellers is the story that is not told, the back story, which is most assuredly needed to form the most accurate conclusion(s). And the best story tellers will NOT EVER tell us the back story, because their greatness comes from what they give us that is the nothingness of the story (the absence of the back story): WE have to fill in the blanks, WE have to write our own back story, and we can only write this story from the lens and photo album of our own (limited and limiting) life's experiences, and thus, there is a never-ending mobia strip of back stories, leaving as at the beginning of THIS story with THE END of THIS story. Which again, is more easily understood via FILM (e.g., Pulp Fiction, Mullholland Drive, The Usual Suspects).
Here's what we know of this song:
It is told by one man, the loch-keeper, who relates to us the conversation of a sailor, clearly a friend, a good friend, a dear friend, even, and perhaps a friend since childhood; possibly a brother or a cousin; possibly even a father or a son! Let's keep it simple, and make it a good friend. A man with whom the loch keeper shares the honesty of his soul. A man to whom the loch keeper will tell the unvarnished truths as he knows them; as they are known by him, and who does NOT take offense at something very much akin to a thoughtless off handed comment. Good friends get not better than this from good friends: the truth, warts and all, and the attendant judgments that associate there with. And yet, there are many truths, and what is true for me, as to my values, aspirations, dreams, ambitions, hopes, disappointments, fears, etc, you may hold on to as nearly, as dearly, as I; and yet, we may be in direct opposition on many, most, or perhaps even ALL of the most salient points.
And in this song, there are diametric opposites of values, dreams, hopes, aspirations. Coming from two so different points of view, there are entirely different sets of underlying assumptions. Until we can come to agreement on an underlying set of assumptions, we cannot have a meaningful conversation on such matters of values, judgments, etc, etc, etc. This lack of agreement makes neither of us right, nor neither one of us wrong. It's only you and me, and we just disagree. It means we can talk for a long damn time and never move the one by the other, nor never be moved by the other, the one. And yet, IF, we are willing to continue the conversation, at SOME point, one (or the other) may make a point, hit an intersection of time – space – place that resonates with the experiences of the other. At this point, change becomes possible, and with change, growth and insight, and, hopefully, kindness, tenderness, loving, forgiveness, and compassion.
As we wait for my loch to cycle I say “My wife has given me a son!”
“A son!” you cry, “Is that all that you've done?”
“Is that all that you've done?” Sounding rather callous, sounding rather crass, rather not too very impressed with a man who prefers being a loch-keeper, husband, and father, as opposed to joining his (good and dear) friend fore to sail the seas. ONLY with a very good friend (certainly, NOT with a stranger) would one be so impervious to social decorum to ask “Is that all that you've done?” But note, the loch-keeper does NOT contradict or take offense. He has another question entirely (that his friend has minimized, probably – but certainly NOT certainly in jest – his friend having become a father).
She wears boganvillia blossoms, you pluck 'em from her hair
and toss them in the tide. Sweep her in your arms and carry her inside
Her sighs catch on your shoulder,
her moonlit eyes grow bold and wiser through her tears.
And I say to you, “How could you leave her for a year?”
The loch-keeper tells now of the sailor's wife, and their greeting for each other, and asks this question: “How could you leave her for a year?” What kind of a way is this to treat the woman WHO LOVES YOU? (No matter how little you think of my accomplishment of creating human life, becoming the father to a son, HOW CAN YOU TREAT THIS WOMAN WITH SO LITTLE CARING? How can you stand to be away from her that long. I could not stand this (not even for one hour – as later we shall see; had the loch-keeper once loved the sailor's woman and lost her to the sailor?). Our loch-keeper knows a secret: when you've found a woman who loves you, that you are happy to see, you should stay with her. Nowhere is it written that you can forever take her loving for granted, nor even can you take her being alive and well when you return for granted. LIFE sometimes intervenes; and you, sailor, won't even know what hit you when she's gone!
“So come with me,” you cry,
“to where the Southern Cross rides high upon your shoulder.”
“Come with me,” you cry, “each day you tend this loch, you're one day older.
“While your blood grows colder.”
But the sailor has found something which uplifts, moves, and sustains him. And he wants to share this special joy with his friend, that his friend might know the sailor's joys, while he is still young enough to do so. This is the sailor's gift, the life he lives, and he BELIEVES (knows in his guts, understands intimately, just what this world, this sailor's world would mean to his friend; his friend whom he has known so long; who as boys, likely, watched the ships come into the lochs, and watch the ships leave the lochs, and the dreams they must have had of what the sailor's life would be like. And this is the GIFT he has to give. The GIFT of the life that he knows.
But that anchor chain's a fetter, and with it you are tethered to the foam.
And I would not trade your life for one hour of our own.
This is the crux of the disagreement, where the assumptions depar and radically sot: to the loch-keeper, “that anchor chain's a fetter, and with it you are tethered to the foam.” Tethered to the foam, the sea owns you, and you are its slave; its prisoner. And even if I could have every experience you have ever had with your sailoring, “I would not trade your life for one of our own.”
The loch-keeper's assumptions and the sailor's assumptions as to the life well-lived are diametrically opposed. No agreement ever can be reached on this matter. But, what of us, we who hear this song; we who read the story; we who have made our choices? Another matter, entirely. For we can judge, based on the underlying assumptions we choose to make, as to which life resonates more for us; which is the more meaningful; which one feeds us more fully; which one makes us more whole.
The loch-keeper continues, noting full well the limits and limitations (apparent, and perhaps even real of his own chosen life, and seeing full well it is NOT as “exciting” or as immediately and sensually gratifying, dangerous and exciting and erotic as the life of the sailor:
Sure I'm stuck here on the seaway,
while you compensate for leeway through the trades.
And you shoot the stars that see the miles you've made.
And you'll laugh at the hearts you've riven,
But there is a compensation (and a very worthwhile and worthy one, worth far more to the loch-keeper than the sailor's excitement, joy, experiences, and female conquests:
But which of these has given us more love or life:
You - your tropic mates? Or me - my wife?
So it is a question of values, of which (women or woman) has given to each the more love; the more life? Your tropic mates and their gardens of variety (to you, sailor), or my wife (to me)? The loch-keeper has taken quite seriously the Biblical admonition that a man shall leave his mother and take a wife, and this loch-keeper is very much a “modern man,” in the Jesus sense: a man who LOVES women (note how anguished the loch-keeper is at the thought of the sailor's leaving of the one with the boganvilla blossoms in her hair for a year). Which is feeding us more, nourishing us more, sustaining us more: You with your Peter Pan lived life, or me with my grown up and settled down life with wife (and son)?
But the sailor's assumptions have not changed for the conversation (which, surely, these two friends have time and again; it is in the nature of friends truly loving of one another to have these serious conversations, that might even destroy the friendship someday – although, not this friendship; they have had the conversation before; they will have this conversation again, the next time the sailor returns; that is, IF the sailor returns, for the sea is a harsh mistress, and sometimes extracts a very high price from her sailors.
“So come with me,” you cry,
“to where the Southern Cross rides high upon your shoulder.”
“Come with me,” you cry, “each day you tend this loch, you're one day older.
“While your blood grows colder.”
My friend, LISTEN, please, to what I say – come with me, while you still have the time to enjoy it (it need not be forever; but please, one time, please, enter into my world!) - before it's too late and your blood becomes too cold to e're be warm (again)!
Emphatically, the loch-keeper answers, the same answer as was given before; and the same answer repeated once again, so compelling is this line of reasoning, its inherent, underlying, immutable, well-ordered sense of logic:
But that anchor chain's a fetter, and with it you are tethered to the foam,
and I would not trade your life for one hour, our own.
Yes that anchor chain's a fetter and with it you are tethered to the foam,
And I would not trade your life for one hour, our own.
The one will never convince the other. Their assumptions are too far apart, and too dearly held to ever change them. But, what of us? Do we seek to bea philandering Peter Pan (the sailor)? How many of us chuck all of that stability and certainty away, frequently in our 40's, trading in the old wife for a newer, more exciting (and younger) model; buying a Porsche, or a Harley? The sailor's logic swayed us, or was it merely that we wanted to be swayed, that we married too soon and find our life less exciting than it once was? Perhaps we got off track somewhere. And what allegiance does one owe a wife one no longer finds exciting; a job one finds no longer spiritually rewarding (if it ever was); a conservative (boring, one that father might drive) automobile that one would never get a speeding ticket driving?
But what of us? Do we KNOW in our hearts the good things we've got? The wife? The kids? The grand kids? The (well-earned and deserved) respect of the members of our community? The (well-earned and deserved) respect of our co-workers? Have all the long we been following a path that first led us to the only thing we ever needed to complete us? THE woman of our dreams, who has stuck with us, even when we perhaps went a little crazy, and drove a little too fast, or flirted a little too ostentatiously, the woman who gave us all the rope we ever needed to hang ourselves with, and in so doing, gave us the freedom to love her; to choose her; to make that commitment, to have and to hold, 'til death us do part.
Some will hear the song and perhaps be inspired to leave to sail the seas, to start over, to be reborn, perhaps even to erase the old slate, which maybe was fairly impressive, looking at it from the outside, but was never what some really deigned and dreamed to do, from the beginning.
Others will hear the song and smile, sagely, knowing the wisdom of the loch-keeper is eternal.
And, in the end, the story teller, the song-writer, the song-singer is the real hero, because he has given us something very worthwhile to chew on, mull over, and digest!
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