Mar. 22nd, 2005 03:24 pm
What good can come out of Missouri?
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muckefuckToday I discovered that a raunchy song I learned to sing back in college, The Moose Song, is set to the tune of an English ballad called Villikens and his Dinah. How did I discover this? I was listening to Johnny Cash sing a comic Western ballad called Sweet Betsy from Pike and I realised the tune was eerily familiar.
Johnny tells us in his spoken-word preface that the song concerns a young couple from Pike County, Missouri. That sent a shiver up my spine: It shares a border with the site of my adolescent exile, Lincoln County. (A landmark for out-of-staters: The largest port in Pike County, Louisiana, is only about fifteen miles downriver from Hannibal.)
My memories of Pike County are solidly positive. I saw my first opera there, we used to go eagle-watching at Lock and Dam #26 near Clarksville, and I'm pretty sure it was in the county seat that we all got shut up in a hotel room with cable and far too much sugary soda while my parents attended some event. Good times!
Johnny tells us in his spoken-word preface that the song concerns a young couple from Pike County, Missouri. That sent a shiver up my spine: It shares a border with the site of my adolescent exile, Lincoln County. (A landmark for out-of-staters: The largest port in Pike County, Louisiana, is only about fifteen miles downriver from Hannibal.)
My memories of Pike County are solidly positive. I saw my first opera there, we used to go eagle-watching at Lock and Dam #26 near Clarksville, and I'm pretty sure it was in the county seat that we all got shut up in a hotel room with cable and far too much sugary soda while my parents attended some event. Good times!