Bill Morrissey sounded like an old man long before he was one, which was weird, because he looked like a teenager long after he was one. When I met him, he was about thirty years old, fresh-faced, with the semi-long hair that went with being a high school student in the 1970s — my time, ten years younger — and that craggy old man’s voice.
He aged into the voice, sooner than he should have. Too much whiskey was part of it, but there are always reasons for the whiskey, and so many of his songs express a deep loneliness. I don’t know where that came from, and at some level I can’t regret it, since it gave the songs their depth and power, but that’s a hell of a trade.
This is one of his shorter songs, and a favorite of mine, because of the deft use of language and the way it sneaks up on you. Dave Van Ronk, a mentor and influence for both of us and the person who told us about each other, used to talk about Brecht’s theory of alienation, which in Dave’s interpretation worked by pairing a bleak lyric with a cheery tune, so it caught you off guard rather than letting you relax into it.
This is one of the best examples I know of that effect, and in the right setting it’s a killer… but Bill found it didn’t work for him onstage, so he never recorded it and if I hadn’t happened to sit him down in front of a tape recorder during the brief period when he was playing it, no one would know it existed. I played it onstage a couple of times, which pleased him, but it didn’t work for me either, back then.
Maybe we were too young. It’s an older man’s song, and works fine for me now. I wish he were around to give it another try.
(Bill was a good friend, partner, and inspiration to me, and I know a lot of his songs. I’ve already posted “Small Town on the River,” “Texas Blues,” “Barstow,” “My Baby and Me,” “Oil Money,” “King Jelly’s Good Morning Irene Song,” “Candlepin Swing,” “Soldier’s Pay,” and “Night Shift,” with more to come.)