During last week's article post, we took a deep dive into a fun mix of music by deep diving If I Had a Boat by Lyle Lovett, If You’re Gone by Matchbox 20, and Push also by Matchbox 20.
This week, we shift gears completely with an often times forgotten tune from the early 80s, an early 2000s country hit and a classic tune that was later covered by a country artist.
Same Old Lang Syne - Dan Fogelberg
I first heard this song about a decade ago randomly one night while drinking a glass of bourbon at my favorite watering hole in Baldwinsville, New York. By the way, if you’ve never been to Pasta’s On the Green (now Chris’ Place) off the 690 exit for Village Green, you are missing out. Great people, great music on the weekends and on Thursday night’s in the summer.
Anyway, I later re-listened to the song on vinyl with my now-ex girlfriend who had a bunch of her deceased father’s records from his favorite musicians. He loved Dan Fogelberg, so of course this song was on the album we listened to.
“Met my old lover in the grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
I stole behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve
She didn't recognize the face at first
But then her eyes flew open wide
She went to hug me, and she spilled her purse
And we laughed until we cried”
This is probably some of the best ballad storytelling you can really get from music. Here Fogelberg doesn’t mince words and opens by saying that it was Christmas Eve and he was at the grocery store when he ran into an old flame. He snuck up behind her like you can imagine doing if you haven’t seen someone in a long time, and he casually touched her to get her attention.
After he brushed up against her, she didn’t realize who he was at first. Then in a scene you have seen in nearly every rom-com ever made, she popped back and realized it was her old flame. We can imagine this might have been a youthful romance in its time and they are probably in their 30s or 40s now. Either way, when she went to hug him, she botched the moment but they allowed it to be a humorous time that they laughed hysterically about.
“We took her groceries to the checkout stand
The food was totaled up and bagged
We stood there lost in our embarrassment
As the conversation dragged
Went to have ourselves a drink or two
But couldn't find an open bar
We bought a six-pack at the liquor store
And we drank it in her car”
After the mishap in the first verse, they didn’t brush it off and go about their evenings on Christmas Eve. Instead they stuck it out and took her groceries to the checkout. Here, Fogelberg inserts a very subtle and deliberate note. The food was totaled up and bagged is something so obvious, but he still mentioned it.
We’ve all been in that situation before, where you are checking out an order at the store. But what I believe he’s really saying here isn’t that the conversation dragged with the old flame, instead the conversation dragged with the checkout person who was trying to make small talk not knowing that these two old lovers were just trying to get about their day.
I believe the above is true, because if the conversation was dragging they both had a clear out when they walked out the door of the store on a holiday evening. Instead, they opted to continue the conversation at a nearby establishment over drinks. However, due to it being Christmas Eve they couldn’t find an open place so they went to the only open place (a liquor store) bought a six pack and retreated to the safety of her car to continue the evening.
“We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
And tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how”
It’s here where we really can lock in to this having been a youthful romance as they drink to innocence. If the once-budding romance wasn’t youthful, there probably wouldn’t be innocence unless they were mutual first loves at a later age. They also toasted here to the current times.
Reaching beyond the emptiness is a strange phrase to use. The conversation clearly wasn’t empty or they wouldn’t have continued the evening. I believe the emptiness here was both of them realizing that they weren’t being fulfilled in their current situations, potentially relationships. They wanted to get beyond it, but they couldn’t because they realized that past situations took them away from each other.
“She said she'd married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would've liked to say she loved the man
But she didn't like to lie
I said the years had been a friend to her
And that her eyes were still as blue
But in those eyes, I wasn't sure if I
Saw doubt or gratitude”
The woman is brutally honest in this verse. She married for money, safety and the security that women yearn for in relationship with a man. Her husband had protected her over the years of their marriage, but she’s fallen out of love with him over the course of that time. The turn of phrase here is particularly powerful in how it’s said that she wants to tell him she loves her husband, but she’s not a liar so read between the lines.
The second half of the verse is beautiful in its own way. Most men have dropped a compliment with the purest of hearts in their lives and that compliment did not land as expected. That happens here as he mentioned that she looks just like she did when they were younger and he remembered to mention a small detail like her eyes being blue. However, she may not have received the compliment well as he gets an unsure vibe from her after delivering the kind words.
“She said she saw me in the record stores
And that I must be doing well
I said, "The audience was heavenly
But the traveling was hell””
This verse is short but also powerful if you know the backstory. Fogelberg wrote this song five years after this exact incident played out in the real world. In that guise, the woman seeing him in the record stores takes on a new meaning. She saw his records, and remembered him fondly and since he had released a record at the time he must be at least moderately successful. His response is golden in that while the fans and experience on the road is fun and exciting, life on the road sucks.
“We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
And tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how
We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving in our eloquence
Another auld lang syne”
He repeats the chorus, but turns it over slightly on the return. This time they drank a toast to time and relived the old moments. Another auld lang syne is a callback to the holiday song about new beginnings.
“The beer was empty, and our tongues were tired
And running out of things to say
She gave a kiss to me as I got out
And I watched her drive away
Just for a moment, I was back at school
And felt that old familiar pain
And as I turned to make my way back home
The snow turned into rain”
These two old lovers drank a six pack and talked each others ears off. As conversation goes though, things started to wind down as the night wore on and he got out of her car. She kissed him on his way out of the car and quickly drove off, possibly to never be seen again.
The backend of the final verse solidifies that this was a youthful romance as he states he remembers it like they were back in school. Despite the kiss in his departure, he then remembered how his heart broken back then in a similar moment. The snow helped set this winter scene of romance in this tale, and as he went home without his old flame Mother Nature confirmed his feelings by the snow turning to rain.
Released as a single in 1980 and later on the full album, The Innocent Age, Same Old Lang Syne reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and #8 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.
After Fogelberg’s death, the woman in the song confirmed the details. The song was later covered by Train and also The Backstreet Boys.
If Something Should Happen - Darryl Worley
After 9/11, songs like this one came across the airwaves mainly on country radio as American troops entered Afghanistan and later Iraq.
At the time, I was listening to country radio quite a bit and this ongoing has stuck with me more than 20 years after its release.
“Buddy you and me go way back
Camp Lejeune, all through high school and before that.
So I don't mind tellin' you I'm scared to death.
The doctor is goin' in on the 25th
It's the same thing my daddy had
Thank God they caught it fast.”
In the opening verse, we can imagine two old friends having a pretty serious conversation. They served in the military together at Camp Lejeune, N.C., went to high school together and basically grew up in each other’s lives. Due to their familiarity and being so close, the narrator says he’s comfortable telling his buddy that something has gone wrong. He went to the doctor and got a bad report. We can insinuate that it’s cancer, because the words “is goin’ in” means surgery and they’re probably going to be removing something if it’s bad enough that he feels the need to tell a friend that it has him scared to death. The confirmation of cancer comes at the end when he says ‘Thank God they caught it fast’.
“But if somethin' should happen
Stop in some time and say hello to Catherine
You and Marianne could always keep her laughing
Because she's gonna need a lot of that
Take her out to a movie
It's gonna take sometime before she's back on her feet.
I know you think I'll be fine and I'm talkin' crazy
But there's always that chance
That's why I'm askin'
If something should happen”
Here starts the meat of the song. If something should happen implies that he could lose his life during this surgery. As a lot of us have unfortunately experienced, surgery doesn’t always end as expected. He’s telling his best friend all of the things he hopes he will do if the worst comes to fruition. He wants him to stop by with his wife and check on his now widowed wife. She’s going to need to laugh a lot after losing her cherished husband. Get her out of the house too, she will need to get outside the home and re-engage with the world after hers is turned upside down. He finished by saying that this is basically like a will, it’s a worse-case conversation, but he doesn’t want to not have it and regret it later on. Instead he wants to make sure his family is OK if he should meet his demise.
“Little Nathan is growing up so fast
This November he'll turn 10
He wants to play quarterback.
I'm supposed to coach his team this fall
But I may not get to afterall
He's gonna need someone to catch a pass
And to throw it back”
In this verse we find out that the narrator has a young son as well. He speaks well of his little boy and says he wants to be a quarterback like every young boy inspires to be. After that he mentions coaching the team but regretting that if something does happen, that won’t come to pass. He continues the theme of the chorus here and says that along with helping his wife, also do fatherly things with his son and play catch with him in the back yard.
"If something should happen
Oh promise me you'll take that boy out campin'
Throw a line out in the water every now and then
Answer and questions that he has
Maybe once he gets older
You can sit and have that first cold beer together
And tell him a couple stories on his father
He's always known your my best friend.
That's why I'm askin'
If something should happen”
Thematically, the chorus here is similar to the first chorus but it is focused on helping his son grow up in his absence. He wants to make sure that his son comes of age with his best friend at his side so he knows that his son will be raised right should the worst occur.
"I hope I live until I'm eighty
And I get to see my son get married
And have some babies
And make a million more memories with my wife.
Yeah buddy I pray alright
But if it's my time to leave
Could you watch over them for me?”
The song concludes with hopefulness that of course he doesnt want the worst to happen. He expects to live into old age, watch his son grow up and get married, make him a grandfather and make countless memories with his wife. The song basically ends with him making one final request for his best friend to look after his family should he meet an untimely demise during his upcoming surgery.
Released in February 2005 as the second-single on his self-titled album, Darryl Worley, If Something Should Happen peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot Country Charts. It hit #75 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
The Bug - Dire Straits
Earlier I mentioned Pasta’s on the Green and the great people there. I would be remiss to mention this song and not mention my good friend Jim Lana, otherwise known as King Jim.
I’ll never forget talking with him one night and telling him about a misfortune that happened to me. He then told me a story about losing a finger in an accident and looked at me and said “Well Timmer, sometimes you’re the windshield. And sometimes you’re the bug.”
“Well it's a strange old game, you learn it slow
One step forward and it's back to go
You're standing on the throttle, you're standing on the brakes
In the groove 'til you make a mistake”
Mark Knopfler kicks off this fast driving tune with something that isn’t really apparent to the listener unless they have a few years and multitude of experiences under their belt. Life is funny in how it works, a lot of ebbs and flows. In the words of the great Jeffrey Lebowski, it’s complicated, a lot of ins a a lot of outs, a lot of what have yous.”
Just when it feels like the wind is at your back and everything is going your way, something happens that gives you a set back. Knopfler uses great metaphoric examples to bring it all together.
“Sometimes you're the windshield
Sometimes you're the bug
Sometimes it all comes together, baby
Sometimes you're a fool in love
Sometimes you're the Louisville slugger, baby
Sometimes you're the ball
Sometimes it all comes together, baby
Sometimes you're gonna lose it all”
When you’re driving down the road, have you ever hit a bug? Of course you have, everyone can related to the first metaphor. The windshield is still progress and moving forward in life, but to the bug that windshield means life is over.
At other times everything comes together for you and it seems that everything will be that way forever. Other times, you are made a fool of in a relationship and it completely sets you back.
The metaphor continued with a great baseball analogy. If you’re the bat, you blast home runs and everyone in the stands erupts in elation. But if you’re the ball in that situation you just get smacked hundreds of feet into open water, bleachers or an unwitting fan’s glove.
The chorus ends with things coming together and also unraveling in the same sentence.
“You gotta know happy, you gotta know glad
Because you're gonna know lonely and you're gonna know bad
When you're rippin' and a ridin', and you're coming on strong
You start a-slippin' and a-slidin', and it all goes wrong, because”
It’s in this verse that we start to realize that this is a song about the game of love, not just the game of life. Knopfler is saying here that you’ll be happy in love and feel at times like you’re on top of the world. But you’ll best benefit if you also realize that you will fall out of love and be lonely from time to time as well. Just when you get comfortable, everything could unravel and you’re left on the outside looking in.
“Sometimes you're the windshield
Sometimes you're the bug
Sometimes it all comes together, baby
Sometimes you're a fool in love
Sometimes you're the Louisville slugger, baby
Sometimes you're the ball
Sometimes it all comes together
Sometimes you're gonna lose it all”
The chorus repeats here as it did above. Nothing new to reveal, but now you should be looking at it from the lens of the game of love.
“One day you got the glory, then you got none
One day you're a diamond, and then you're a stone
Everything can change in the blink of an eye
So let the good times roll before we say goodbye”
Same theme as the last verse here. Top of the world to the bottom of the heap in the blink of an eye. This verse ends though with a call to action that you better enjoy the good times while they last because they wont be around forever.
“Sometimes you're the windshield
Sometimes you're the bug, yeah
Sometimes it all comes together, baby
Sometimes you're a fool in love
Sometimes you're the Louisville slugger baby
Sometimes you're the ball
Sometimes it all comes together, baby
Sometimes you're gonna lose it all, I said
Sometimes you're the windshield
Sometimes you're the bug
Sometimes it all comes together, baby
Sometimes you're a fool in love
Sometimes you're the Louisville slugger, baby
Sometimes you're the ball
Sometimes it all comes together, baby
Sometimes you're gonna lose it all”
The fourth and final single from the 1991 album “On Every Street”, The Bug barely cracked the top 50 in the UK charts but reached #21 in Canada. The next year, Mary Chapin Carpenter covered the song and it peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles charts.