Heartache With Hard Work

The only real question for New Hampshire was which song to pick from Okkervil River’s Silver Gymnasium. In the end, I chose Black Nemo. It isn’t really a song ‘about New Hampshire’ in some general sense. But it is a song about a specific kid who grew up there, about his sense of memory, and about the poetry of imperfect understanding.  It speaks to me about the intense particularity of our own experiences, the pieces of our past that we feel but could never manage to truly explain.

There is an obvious pick I’m leaving on the board here. And I adore Elvis as much as the next fellow. But come on, I’m not picking Viva Las Vegas. I’m not even going to pick the (very good) Dead Kennedys cover.

I did seriously consider a sadly-forgotten track called “Reno” by Finishing School, a lovely Elephant Six-inspired track from the early 00s. But ultimately, I kept coming back to the ethereal wonder of “Heaven or Las Vegas.” The enigma of the city provides a strong framework for expressing the gauzy beauty of the Twins. All of the seediness and chintziness of the city fade away, replaced by a kaleidoscope of lights and movement.

Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen

The whole album is a classic, of course, but this song is arguably the hardest-hitting of the bunch. It’s not my favorite track on Nebraska, by any means, but it’s the one that defines the entire enterprise. Springsteen has always been more complicated than his critics (and fans, too, in most cases) have thought, but with this song he laid down a marker. It’s dark, unforgiving, raw, horrifying.

The killer waiting for his execution, feeling no particular remorse, or fear either, with just enough humanity left to ponder why it all took place. The simple, devastating answer: “I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.”

Tear-Stained Eye – Son Volt

Missouri is one of the few states where the official state song is competitive, thanks to a nice Johnny Cash version of “Missouri Waltz.” Still, it was never going to beat out one of my all-time favorite songs: this gem from Jay Farrar about the Mississippi overflowing its banks and threatening the little town of St. Genevieve, Missouri.

It’s a song about the march of time, the power of memory, and the conviction that allows us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. St. Genevieve is only mentioned in the chorus, but its presence leaves traces all through the song. After all, the modern day St. Genevieve no longer inhabits its original location, which had to be abandoned after the great flood of 1785 washed away the entire settlement. But the settlers were undaunted by this catastrophe. They simply moved back off the floodplain and started over.

St. Genevieve is defined by the river. The great Mississippi, which brings trade and commerce, which ties them together with the world outside. It’s the lifeblood of the community, but also a constant threat. And so they strive to hold back the water, praying for salvation. All to aware that salvation often comes only after everything has been flattened. When, against all odds, we find a way to pick up the pieces and start over once again.

Here’s to the State of Mississippi – Phil Ochs

If one wanted to develop a typology of states, there are plenty of features they could use to establish key lines of differentiation. Geography, climate, demographics, wealth, etc. But in many ways, it seems to me that you can define states quite well by identifying whether their quintessential songs are positive or negative about the state. For example, New Jersey certainly has its defenders, but it’s notable that the classic song of New Jersey is essentially a song about trying to get the hell out of New Jersey. Conversely, Colorado is by no means perfect but “Rocky Mountain High” comes pretty close to making it seem that way.

I say all this as way of introduction to my choice for my choice of the definitive song about Mississippi: a biting song from Phil Ochs, a man who wrote more than a few scorchers in his day.

There’s an argument to be made that, by treating Mississippi as some kind of extreme outlier, the song risks letting everyone else off the hook for systemic racism that is by no means confined to the Deep South. It also could be seen as writing off the righteous people who live in Mississippi (two-fifths of the inhabitants are African-American, after all). And there’s certainly some legitimacy to those criticisms.

Still, it remains important to mark the trauma, and this song is one of the finest examples of that process at work. Written in the aftermath of his own experiences in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer, it speaks to the regime of white terror that had been imposed, the casual destructiveness, the dehumanization, the impunity of its white citizens—who killed black men and women and suffered no consequence.

I think Ochs himself provided the best explanation of the song, and its proper place in our national imagination:

“I wrote that song the day 19 suspects were allowed to go free. It’s a song of passion, a song of raw emotional honesty, a song that records a sense of outrage. Even though reason later softens that rage, it is essential that rage is recorded, for how else can future generations understand the revulsion that swept the country? On another level, it is my act of murder against the good name of Mississippi, an act of vengeance that couldn’t begin to avenge the countless atrocities of that forsaken land. In other words, at the depth of its irresponsibility, Mississippi had become the symbol of evil in America, and the song is only exhorting that evil to leave.”