This week we start a series about music. If you read my first post, you probably caught on quickly that music has been the soundtrack of my existence ever since I was a little tike patrolling the streets of Burnham, Pennsylvania.
In this series, I’ll deep dive three songs per week. Those three songs may have different themes, come from different genres and be written by different musicians. The goal is to introduce you, the reader, to new music that you might not have heard before or make you go back and listen to something you’ve heard before but maybe haven’t listened to in a long time.
This week, we’ll be covering the following songs:
Pocket Full of Gold - Vince Gill
Whipping Post - The Allman Brothers
The Jacket - Ashley McBryde
Pocket Full of Gold
Let me set the scene: you’re sitting in a small auditorium -style venue in Charleston, South Carolina. Vince Gill is on the stage and he asks this question: “So, are any of you here tonight with someone you shouldn’t be here with?”
I knew this song since I was five or six years old. At that time, country music to me was Randy Travis and George Strait. Then this fella from Oklahoma came on the scene named Vince Gill and changed country music in the 90s.
“He slipped the ring off his finger
When he walked in the room
And he found him some stranger
And promised her the moon”
Those words can really only have meaning to someone with a few years under their proverbial belt. The imagery can only really be appreciated when you have been in a smoky bar late at night and you see a gentleman walk in the door and approach a woman. He may be dating her, he may not be, but they strike up a conversation and the drinks start flowing.
“How many lies you must have told
You think you're a rich man
With your pocket full of gold”
When you first hear these words, the story sounds pretty normal. Things haven’t gone too far, the conversation is maybe mundane. Perhaps they’re only a drink or two into the evening. All we know at this point is that for some reason, he has a pocket full of gold. That gold might be money, but the first line clearly indicates that it’s a ring he was wearing. Most men only wear one ring, so we are safe to surmise that it was his wedding ring. In modern times, maybe a promise ring, but this song was written in the 90s, so it is distinctly his wedding ring and he took it off to have this encounter with this woman.
“For another man's treasure
You'd say anything
But is one night of pleasure
Worth the trouble you'll bring
Don't look so surprised
'Cause son I should know
I once was a rich man
With my pocket full of gold”
In verse two, the narrator takes over the story. He’s clearly condemning the actions of the man who took his ring off to swoon another woman. He’s also clarifying that in these situations the words that come from a man’s mouth can rarely be trusted. They’re as accurate as his latest fishing story, or how many beers he polished off the night before. The narrator is also indicating that these situationships don’t last long. He can say that because he’s been that man before. Through a lived experience, the narrator is telling the man that he’s making a mistake.
“Some night you're gonna wind up
On the wrong end of a gun
Some jealous guy's gonna show up
And you'll pay for what you've done”
In the final verse and crescendo of the song, the narrator wraps up the story with a warning. It might feel nice in the moment if you do, in fact, follow through with that woman. She might believe your lies, and might even let her guard down for a minute and let you in. However, she might be doing to you the exact same thing you are doing to her. There might be someone else involved in their life and if they find out, there might be hell to pay. You may even pay with your life if you run across the wrong person.
“What will it say on your tombstone
Here lies a rich man
With his pocket full of gold
Yeah, here lies a rich man
With his pocket full of gold”
Pretty obvious here. The song concludes with the narrator using a call back to the first verse of the song and the song’s title. You slipped your ring off and put it in your pocket, but what’s that worth if you in fact end up in a lover’s triangle and end up on the short end of a barrel. No one will see you as a rich man, if you pay for your misdeeds with your life.
This song is classic country storytelling so it’s no shock that it reached number 7 on the Billboard Country charts in January of 1991.
Whipping Post
Another song that probably is best understood through lived experience, The Allman Brothers released this gem in 1969. Coming out of the Summer of Love, Duane Allman might have written this slow blues ballad after a poor experience with a woman, or perhaps his brother Gregg wrote this one predominately from his own experiences. Regardless, I only came to appreciate it after living through a breakup due to infidelity. I was introduced to it by a childhood friend and made fun of him for that song about a horse being whipped. Later in life, I gladly apologized for being so wrong about this Southern Rock classic.
“I've been run down
I've been lied to
And I don't know why
I let that mean woman make me a fool”
She took all my money
Wrecked my new car
Now she's with one of my good time buddies
They're drinkin' in some crosstown bar”
When I think of this first verse, I’m imagining a guy is sitting at a bar or on the couch at his best friend’s. Earlier in the night, he called this friend to see if they had some time to chat. They’re probably sipping a good bourbon and he’s telling his buddy about the events that led up to that phone call. His name has been run down and he’s been lied to by someone who is to this point unknown. He knows he made a mistake and it was against his better judgment, and then we find out that a woman did him dirty and made him look like a fool.
This woman stole his money, crashed his hot rod and if all of that wasn’t enough she’s out on the town drinking with a bar buddy of his at one of his haunts on the other side of town. The imagery is vivid, and we’ve all experienced it if we’ve aged beyond our early 20s.
“Sometimes I feel
Sometimes I feel
Like I've been tied
To the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post
Good Lord, I feel like I'm dyin’”
The chorus is where I was confused as a young, inexperienced man. The whipping post to me was a post where you tied up horses. I grew up in Amish Country in Central Pennsylvania so posts for a horse were everywhere. However, upon further inspection this is a callback to slavery. When slaves misbehaved they were tied to a post and beaten by their master. Things are so bad for the storyteller that they feel like they have been tied up to that same post and are being beat down. The actions of this woman have completely destroyed his fragile ego and he’s left to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship and rebuild his life.
“My friends tell me
That I've been such a fool
And I have to stand down and take it, babe
All for lovin' you
I drown myself in sorrow
As I look at what you've done
But nothin' seems to change
The bad times stay the same
And I can't run”
Verse number two is incredible storytelling by Duane Allman. Any time I’ve ever been friends with someone who has been cheated on, we tell them that the signs were there and they were blinded by love and sometimes lust. They were a fool, but now to make matters worse you just have to deal with it because it’s your fault. The reason I think this story takes place at a bar is because the storyteller is drowning himself in sorrow. Probably shot after shot of Old Granddad washed down by a PBR pounder. He’s trying to drink to forget what he did, but as always happens in those situations the pain is only eliminated temporarily until he sobers up and has to face a new day. In the new day, he can’t escape it and is left to simply repeat process.
“Sometimes I feel
Sometimes I feel
Like I've been tied
To the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post
Good Lord, I feel like I'm dyin’"
The chorus is repeated twice in the album version of the song, but typically Dicky Betts and Duane Allman tear off on a blistering solo during the epic live performances of this song. For fans of the Allmans, its this part of the song that takes this blues classic from standard to unforgettable. In fact, the studio version clocks in at 5:17, while the live version recorded at Fillmore East clocks in at 22:40.
The Jacket
By far the newest song in this trio, The Jacket was released by Ashley McBryde in 2018 on her Girl Going Nowhere album that catapulted her from unknown to de facto country star.
The Jacket is track five on that album, which tells you that McBryde believes it could stand on its own if we are to believe the old concept of A and B sides from the vinyl days. In those days, track five would be the closer of the A-side which was often one of the albums strongest songs.
“It's got a hole in the elbow, bandana pocket
Silver button missin' from the snap at the bottom
I said, "That thing's seen better days
Daddy, you should toss it"
And he just said, ‘Darlin’, I can’t’”
If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you inevitably saw a multitude of jackets just like the songwriter is describing. As a matter of fact, you might own one yourself. There are holes in the elbows because it’s rubbed up against a surface. It was worn indoors, potentially at a bar or it was used by a cowboy in a barn and rubbed up against any wide variety of surfaces in a given day.
Bandada pocket and a missing silver button tells you that this jacket has seen a lot of years. In that era, denim jackets were a bonafide classic in a man’s arsenal. They might have been a date jacket, they might have been a going out jacket, or might have been a work jacket but everyone had one. Heck, I had one at 5 years old because of Randy Travis.
The narrator is telling her dad that it should probably be thrown away. But since it’s been around the block a few times, he’s reluctant to part ways with it.
“This thing is two thousand bonfires, hitchhiked to Boulder
It's kept a million raindrops off your mama's shoulders
My heart on the sleeve, my life in these patches
Then he wrapped his arms around me in that old jean jacket”
In the first chorus, we get the answers to why the father can’t just up and get rid of this old jacket. It has a lot of lived experiences. Two thousand bonfires tells you that it’s probably decades old. It kept him warm when he was a hitchhiker in Colorado and even kept the narrator’s mother dry over the course of many rainstorms over the years. The father also mentions that it has patches on it, which were popular at the time. It’s possible that the father was a biker and the jean jacket was a part of his riding repertoire, but regardless he puts the jacket on and gives his daughter a hug after explaining a part of its meaning.
“It's been a bed for a hound dog, a picnic blanket
There's blood on the collar
From a punk who tried to take it from me
Seen Willie Nelson play in four or five states
The best thing Levi ever made”
The narrators father again implores her with details of the importance of this jacket as a priceless family heirloom. It’s been slept on by the family dog, provided comfort on a picnic and he nearly had it stolen at one time. Finally, it’s seen the road and has witnessed Willie Nelson playing a show in multiple states, we can only assume in the Mountain West. We also have its brand confirmed as a Levi-brand jean jacket which recently came back into popularity due to Beyonce wearing it in her jeans commercial. Did Sydney Sweeney also wear it? Like the owl said in the Tootsie Pop commercials, the world may never know.
“We strung four miles of barbed wire in Corinth, Mississippi
Spent a night in county jail with an old drunk and a hippie
It's my heart on the sleeve, it's my life in these patches
With his arms wrapped around me in that old jean jacket
It ain't much to look at, but he let me have it
So I could feel his arms around me in that old jean jacket”
The father again tells the story of all of the places and lived experiences he’s had with this jacket at his side. He also clarifies that there’s a heart on the sleeve - most likely a heart patch - and it’s among the many patches on the jacket but he used the cliched phrase of wearing his heart on his sleeve to help complete the story.
Finally, he decides to give her the jacket as a momento and for her it allows her to constantly feel his presence.
If you dig deeper into this song, you’ll find that this is a true story. McBryde writes her own lyrics and has shared that the jacket was her father’s and it truly has had an incredible life. Sadly, The Jacket only reached number 40 on the singles charts in 2018.