A Cocktail and a Song
Today was more emotionally charged than the days have been for the past few weeks. This morning, I found myself tearing up as I was going southbound on I-25, driving to work, listening to Dolly Parton’s (and Emmylou Harris and Linda Rondstadt’s) rendition of “After the Gold Rush” and regretting that of all days, today I’d decided to put on eye makeup.
As a child, in the backseat of my dad’s suburban (the ultimate car when you’re young because you can fit all your friends), I listened to Neil Young’s version so many times before I could even comprehend the lyrics (I maybe still don’t, haha). I can’t listen to that album without thinking back to a very specific memory (although, it could be multiple blended together, and not very specific at all) of driving home after a day of boating, STARVING, hoping for (or anticipating) a stop at Taco Bell and listening to Neil Young, singing along to songs like “After the Gold Rush” and “Cripple Creek Ferry”. The music was the only thing distracting me from the ache in my belly, the possibility of a tostada that I could almost taste.
So tonight I find myself sitting at the kitchen table finishing up my dinner, listening to The Highwomen, a safe choice I thought, a new female country supergroup. I’ve listened to their debut album time after time, and it was only tonight that I actually heard their song “Cocktail and a Song”. Oh, but I heard it tonight. It’s like it’s my song, about me and my daddy. In between bites of hummus and pita, suddenly I’m crying and all the makeup I put on this morning is now on the back of my hand: (tasteful) purple glitter shimmer, black eyeliner. Without looking, my guess is the mascara is lingering under my eyes and on the tops of my cheeks (with any luck, tomorrow’s smoky eye?).
Daddy passed me his bottle of tequila
Said, “Time’s running out
We’re gonna have to pretend it’s a margarita
It’s the order of things, it’s the way it goes
Don’t you look at me, girl, like I’m already gone”
The day is close, it won’t be long
Couple of cocktails and a song
And don’t you let me see you cry
Don’t you go grieving
Not before I’m gone
I think about how a couple of weeks ago it was Taylor Swift’s song that was reducing me to tears. Then, I couldn’t imagine living my life without my dad. While I don’t want to think about that, I know fundamentally I will get through life after he’s gone. The song still holds its power, but not in the same way, at least not right now.
But this new song. The quiet acceptance of what’s to come, the stoicism, and yet the emotion permeates every line. It’s as though I’ve noticed it just at the moment I needed to.
So take a deep breath
Quit with the countdown
You’ve always been your daddy’s girl
Nothing’s gonna change that now
It’s amazing how magical music can be - it somehow speaks to your soul, like their words are your words. It takes you back to places you’ve been, to people you’ve known, and sometimes says the things you can’t say on your own. Even though I can’t stop sniffling, I find it comforting.
As I reflect on the tears a remake of a Neil Young song evoked, I’ve noticed that I’ve been trying to hold onto my dad by gathering up as much content (such a 2019 term!) that he likes as I can:
Books: Hemingway, William Stegnar, anything he’s read, really.
Music: Neil Young, Sons of the Pioneers, Johnny Cash & Willy Nelson.
Other things, like birdwatching, which admittedly was triggered by my mother’s thought that we help save the biodiversity of birds by putting bird feeders in our yards, and then I realized I wanted to watch birds like my dad does.
I’m realizing that I’ve been trying to pick up as much of him now so I have something to re-visit when I miss him, or to keep parts of him with me. It’s almost a way to try to understand him. Children don’t really ever know their parents, maybe this is my attempt to try.
I don’t always think that my dad and I have much in common, besides our filial relationship, and a love for good food and wine. That said, I’ve found it easy to pick up some of his interests, largely because they actually align with mine. We both turn to books and reading pretty instinctively, and as I raided his book shelves this week it was fun to see where we’d overlapped (not much, but surprisingly Russian literature was a commonality - Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky), and where we didn’t overlap, but had clearly used books as a source of learning (travel books, business, philosophy).
Ditto for music - if you’ve ever been to his house for supper, he will have certainly curated a playlist (read: loaded the CD player with a few discs. Yes, actual CDs. He even has two (2) discmans!) he thinks will go well with the ambience of the evening, and then usually one guest will be instructed to sit in this white chair in front of the stereo equipment, put on these special headphones, and listen to the intricacies of whatever song has caught my dad’s fancy that night. He always instructs you what to listen for, and then hands you a glass of wine or whiskey to sip on as you settle down to try to absorb the feelings my dad so clearly feels when he hears the song.
I don’t have quite the sound system my dad does, but I think now I understand what he’s trying to share - the feeling certain songs elicit. My dad usually picks out something instrumental about a song, and I the emotions evoked, but maybe this is a case of “po-tay-to, po-tah- to”.
And while our musical tastes don’t always align, we do share an ear for “outlaw country”. It’s worth noting that The Highwomen is an homage to, and evolution of, the collective group The Highwaymen, comprised of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings. I just put it together myself.