03.13.07

A tale of two…tales

Posted in some albums we done liked others we ain't - March 13th, 2007 at 9:42 pm by Cricket

Among my favorite albums is Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger. I love a good concept album. Story songs are awesome, but when the whole album tells a story from beginning to end? Even better. Chuckanut Drive delivers completely with their recent re-release of The Crooked Mile Home.

These boys are from Bellingham, Washington, a stone’s throw from my own hometown. Oddly, it isn’t attention to local bands back home that led me to them. A friend in Boston helped me develop a nifty obsession with them and turned me on to their rockin’ alt-country. They twist together, with a heavy dose of twang, Johnny Cash, Hank Sr., Gram Parsons, Son Volt, Uncle Tupelo, and more traditional rock.

The songs on The Crooked Mile Home range from upbeat and punchy, bordering on rockabilly, like “Reno to Vegas,” “Any Way I Can,” and “Little Did I Know,” to slow, pain-filled songs, like “Juanita,” and “You Cross My Mind,” that carry the torch of the high lonesome sound. Though the “high” here is more like high desert than the top of the Appalachians.

There are some lyrical gems here as well. Steve Leslie does an incredible job the whole way through of writing perfect country lyrics that are simple, but sometimes metaphorical and always evocative. “I’d been searching for so long/looking for trouble/and the words to this song” sticks with me, from “Back on the Tarmac.” It’s clever, but not overly so, and cleanly sums up the story of the whole album.

So, I’ve been listening to this album a lot. I was on a long walk in the park, Chuckanut Drive all queued up on the iPod and it struck me that though the songs stand alone, the story of the whole album and the images the lyrics describe are what really make this album. So I decided, rather than my usual song by song review here, I’d instead give you my interpretation of the story, as I hear it on The Crooked Mile Home.

*

Walk a Crooked Mile

Maryanne told Johnny it was bad idea, quitting his casino job like that. When she said, “Don’t go, there’s too much trouble in the world,” Johnny threw back, “What do you know, Maryanne? You’re just a girl and man’s got to take his chance out in the world. I could stay if I only had the time, but every day I feel like dyin’ and I need that night to set me free.” Maryanne looked at him like maybe he should know better, like she was worried about him the way his mama used to when he was little. But that just made Johnny more determined than ever to go.

Johnny jangled his keys in his hand as they stood on the porch of their little house on the outskirts of Reno. The late afternoon sun slanted over Maryanne’s face, making shadows that falsely turned her look of concern into the disdain that Johnny thought he needed freedom from.

“I think that you can make it. Learn to live your life not by my side.” Johnny pulled his hat low over his eyes, against the desert sun and the hurt in Maryanne’s eyes.

“Good-bye,” he called for the last time as he walked to his truck. He hadn’t taken much more than his guitar and a small case of clothes. A cloud of golden dust swirled behind his truck as he headed toward the highway and away. He knew he could make Vegas before midnight, and he hit the gas a little harder, just to make certain he started the new day in new place.

Las Vegas wasn’t so different than Reno. Bigger, shinier, but still all the same. He was a free man, and Johnny could go anywhere. That’s just what he intended to do. It was more than Reno he wanted to leave behind, it was his life in general.

His daddy had some people back in Pennsylvania, Mansfield specifically. Maybe he’d start there. Hit Pittsburgh too. Maybe stop in Sugartown and find a pretty girl to spend the night with. He’d done alright for himself the two days he’d spent in Vegas. The pocket of his worn Levi’s was bulging with the cash he’d won.

It was early when Johnny checked out of the motel; the sun hadn’t even broken over the tops of the low buildings around him. He shook off his hangover with a cup of burnt coffee from the gas station he stopped at on the edge of town. By the time the sun was fully up, Las Vegas was speck in his review as he headed down highway 93 toward Route 66 — the east and whatever he would find there.

He made it to Flagstaff before he had to stop for gas again. The desert air was so hot and dry that Johnny thought he might not even make it through the state if he didn’t stop somewhere. He found a low, ramshackle building by the side of the highway, Happy Jack’s, and had a few drinks. Jack himself ran the place and he pulled a bottle of homemade wine from under the counter when Johnny started to tell about how he was a ramblin’ man now, going where ever he chose, free from work and women and the things that kept men down.

They drank until the sun was low on the horizon and pushing through the open door of the saloon, lighting up the heels of the few customers that straggled in as darkness descended. That night Johnny slept in the cab of his truck. Not so bad, he thought when he woke up, though his head was pounding from the cactus wine. He paused only long enough to piss on the dumpster behind Happy Jack’s, which didn’t look so happy in the morning light. It didn’t matter, it was one more thing that was soon to be behind Johnny, like everything else.

Johnny drove until dark, stopping in the first place he saw lights looming out of the darkness. He stayed only until first light and headed out again. The roads were empty and wide open as the sky. He fiddled with the radio, finding some old country, Hank Williams, Willie and finally Johnny Cash played. He sped on, tappin’ his toes to his namesake until red and blue lights flashed behind him.

Johnny pulled over without thinking. He didn’t have a plan, but he didn’t have any warrants in this state or anything illegal on him. The radio blared on as the State Trooper walked up to Johnny’s open window.

A smile broke out under the Trooper’s wide brimmed hat. “Son, I’m gonna let this pass, because even I like to speed to Johnny Cash.” He tipped that hat and walked back to his car.

It was a sign, Johnny knew, a blessing on his choice. He really was a man of the road now. Even State Troopers acknowledged his right to go on, where ever he chose.

What he chose when he hit Texas was the first roadhouse he found, just across the state line, for cold beer and a few games of pool to build up the cash in his pocket.

It was eight days before he started to get tired, before he forgot everything he’d had before he set out. Johnny headed north from Texas, hit Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. The middle states were a blur, though he remembered a good night in Memphis and another in Shreveport before he headed back toward Texas.

In the middle of the ninth day, Santa Fe loomed close, a mirage in the desert. Johnny hadn’t liked the green plains of the Midwest or the trees that had followed him through Louisiana and back into Texas. He was man without a home but the desert itself, and he was glad to be in it again.

Gas had eaten up most all of his cash. He’d hit Las Vegas again, trying to make enough cash to keep going, but it hadn’t lasted.

Durango, Colorado wasn’t a place Johnny ever expected to find himself. But it was where the truck died and so he stayed. He played a couple local bars every night for enough money to keep him in whiskey. Sometimes he just played for whiskey. It hadn’t been bad in the beginning. Playing for money, staying the night with pretty girls who came to the bar. But soon it seemed like there weren’t pretty girls left who’d give him the time of day. He slept in the truck and woke up shaking until he had his first beer.

He tried once to write Maryanne, tell her how much better life was here, but he couldn’t find the words.

He got work as ranch hand and did as much as he could to distract himself, but Maryanne’s face seemed to loom everywhere. Driving his bosses’ truck across the hills, taking the horses to and from the rodeo, he’d close his eyes just for a second and see her standing on the porch of the little house they’d shared, looking so sad. He knew he couldn’t go back; she’d never forgive him–he’d never forgive himself, but he couldn’t help but think about her all the time.

In autumn there was less work and Johnny was still drinking up every cent he made, sleeping in an old shed on the back of the ranch. Winter was rough and passed in such a haze of alcohol that Johnny wasn’t even sure it had happened. He tried to call Maryanne, collect from a payphone, but the number he remembered didn’t work anymore. He wanted to send her a letter, but buying paper was money that could fix the truck. Not that it did, Johnny still drank all the money away until the snow was gone and spring peaked out over the hills. He was still playing the roadhouses when there wasn’t enough work on the nearby ranches, but even the music was empty now. He just didn’t have anything left.

One night he found himself with nothing to do because there wasn’t much action in this little town. Johnny walked aimlessly around the town, his boots as worn out as his soul felt. Lately he couldn’t sing anything but sad songs and he wondered if maybe Maryanne hadn’t been right about the darker side of life. It wasn’t freedom, but maybe the casino job and the girl waiting at home for him every night hadn’t been so bad. The peace of mind he thought he got from being on the road was evaporating.

That night Johnny slept outside, on a dusty bench in a small park. When the sun cracked the night he woke up with a prayer in his mind. He wanted forgiveness. That night in the last of the honky-tonks that would let him play he sang to God, he sang for redemption and for a chance to make things right. The crowd didn’t pay him any more attention than they ever did, but Johnny felt he’d turned a corner. Only around that bend all he found was that he was more lost than he’d ever realized.

He knew all he wanted now was to go back to Maryanne. He was determined to do it. He’d get the carburetor on the truck fixed, get money enough for gas to carry him back home. And he wouldn’t wait, it would be today, he’d find a way. This useless town was more than he could stand.

Getting a gun hadn’t been hard, Johnny knew all the ranch hands and he quickly found one shady enough to lend him one without asking questions.

Desperate, he hit the first gas station he found. Told the man at the register to put up his hands. Johnny was just going to reach over and take all the cash in the store. But the man hadn’t played along and when the gun went off, for a second, Johnny wasn’t even sure what had happened. He stood paralyzed as the sirens came closer. Everything went wrong so quickly, the man must have hit an alarm or something. It was the worst luck and something Johnny hadn’t even counted on in this shitty little town.

As the cop cuffed his hands behind his back, it hit him how much trouble he was in.

The nights spent in the county jail were empty, lost time Johnny hardly saw pass. His mama and daddy had come down from Nevada to watch the trial. They visited him in jail and he apologized as he could, for how it all came out. For the man he had become. At the sentencing, his mother had cried and his father turned away as they led Johnny from the courthouse.

He tried and tried to pray when he got to prison, but it seemed he couldn’t find Jesus, or Jesus couldn’t find him. For two long years and forty days he prayed and thought about what he’d done, how he came to be here. He knew now that something inside him always made him choose the hard way. He always left when he should’ve stayed. He drank and cursed God when he should’ve been praying. But now, after so long, he thought he could see the man he should have been, the man maybe he could become.

When he finally passed through the prison gate in his old worn-out boots, Johnny knew he’d changed. What he’d done was a lesson and no lesson came easy. He was now a man and ready to be a better one. The freedom he’d had before doing his time had been squandered. Once, he’d had all the things he’d needed, and though he long ago thought to put those things behind him, all he wanted was to go toward them again.

His daddy had sent him enough money for the ticket back home. All those days in jail, Johnny hadn’t thought of anything but the home he’d once had. Now, as he stood on the tarmac of the Reno airport, he was both relieved and afraid. He didn’t know if Maryanne would take him back, would recognize that he had become the man he always should have been. She never answered the letters he’d written from prison, but he hoped she understood all the things he tried to say. He sent her so many songs he’d written, hoping they’d show her how he was a changed man.

It had taken forever to get a ride, hitchhiking across town. Johnny walked the last mile to the little blue house that felt like the only home he’d ever known. Maryanne was standing on the porch, just as he’d last seen her, shading her eyes against the sun. He knew she could refuse to let him in, and he wouldn’t blame her if she did.

“You walked back?” she asked as he came close enough to hear her.

“It’s a crooked mile that brings me back to your door.” Johnny stood, waiting for her to speak, but she didn’t, she just stared at her feet. “Maryanne, are you crying?” He asked finally when he realized her shoulders were shaking. He reached for her and pulled her against his chest. “Don’t be sad,” he said. “I’m back, I’m not the same man. Things will be different now. Don’t cry, I’ve already cried enough for both of us.”

Her small body shuddered against him and Johnny realized that he had the whole world ahead of him, the way he had when he’d set out in his old red truck. But now he knew what he wanted.

“Can we go inside?” he asked, his lips on her hair.

Maryanne pulled back, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. She nodded a little and smiled, reaching for his hand and turning toward the door.

*

I’m pretty sure that’s one of the more self-indulgent things I’ve even done. Obviously drawn entirely from Chuckanut Drive’s songs and lyrics, but dedicated to TimmyMac for making me give them a listen in the first place.

[I have nothing negative to say about this record. Isn’t that enough of a reason to buy it? Also, it makes me want to go on a road trip—which I loathe—AND go to Nevada—which I hate even more than road trips. Huh.--Mimi]

So, go on, buy the album, listen for the story it tells you, or just enjoy each of the songs for what they are, because they are all damn fine songs.

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