On The Nature of True Love-The Search For The Great Working-Class Love
Song - With Richard Thompson’s Vincent Black Lightning, 1952 In Mind –Take
Two
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin:
Several
years ago, maybe about eight years now that I think about it, I did a series of
sketches on guys, folk-singers, folk-rockers, rock-folkers or whatever you want
to call those who weened us away from the stale pablum rock in the early 1960s (Bobby
Vee, Rydell, Darin, et al, Sandra Dee, Brenda Lee, et al) after the gold rush
dried up in what is now called the classic age of rock and roll in the mid to
late 1950s when Elvis, Jerry Lee, Buddy, Chuck, Bo and their kindred made us
jump. (There were gals too like Wanda Jackson but mainly it was guys in those
days.) I am referring of course to the savior folk minute of the early 1960
when a lot of guys with acoustic guitars, some self-made lyrics, or stuff from
old Harry Smith Anthology times gave us a reprieve. The series titled Not
Bob Dylan centered on why those budding folkies like Tom Rush, Tom Paxton,
Phil Ochs, Jesse Winchester and the man under review Richard Thompson to name a
few did not make the leap to be the “king of folk” that had been ceded by the
media to Bob Dylan and whatever happened to them once the folk minute went
south after the combined assault of the British rock invasion (you know the
Beatles, Stones, Kinks, hell, even Herman’s Hermits got play for a while), and the rise of acid rock put folk in the
shade (you know the Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, The Doors, The Who, hell,
even the aforementioned Beatles and Stones got caught up in the fray although
not to their eternal musical playlist benefit). I also did a series on Not
Joan Baez, the “queen of the folk minute” asking that same question on the
female side but here dealing with one Richard Thompson the male side of the
question is what is of interest.
I did a
couple of sketches on Richard Thompson back then, or rather sketches based on
probably his most famous song, Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
which dove-tailed with some remembrances of my youth and my semi-outlaw front
to the world and the role that motorcycles played in that world. Additionally,
in light of the way that a number of people whom I knew back then, classmates
whom I reconnected on a class reunion website responded when I posed the
question of what they thought was the great working-class love song since North
Adamsville was definitely a working class town driven by that self-same ethos I
wrote some other sketches driving home my selection of Thompson’s song as my
choice.
The latter sketches
are what interest me here. See Thompson at various times packed it in, said he
had no more spirit or some such and gave up the road, the music and the
struggle to made that music, as least professionally. Took time to make a more
religious bent to his life and other such doings. Not unlike a number of other
performers from that period who tired of the road or got discourage with the
small crowds, or lost the folk spirit. Probably as many reasons as individuals
to give them. Then he, they had an epiphany or something, got the juices
flowing again and came back on the road. That fact is to the good for old time folk (and
rock) aficionados like me.
What that
fact of returning to the road by Thompson and a slew of others has meant is
that my friend and I, (okay, okay my sweetie who prefers that I call her my
soulmate but that is just between us so friend) now have many opportunities to
see acts like Thompson’s Trio, his current band configuration, to see if we
think they still “have it” (along with acts of those who never left the road like
Bob Dylan who apparently is on an endless tour whether we want him to do so or
not). That idea got started about a decade ago when we saw another come-back
kid, Geoff Muldaur of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, solo, who had taken something
twenty years off. He had it. So we started looking for whoever was left of the
old folks acts (rock and blues too) to check out that question-unfortunately
the actuarial tables took their toll before we could see some of them at least
one last time like Dave Von Ronk.
That brings
us to Richard Thompson. Recently we got a chance to see him in a cabaret
setting with tables and good views from every position, at least on in the
orchestra section, at the Wilbur Theater in Boston with his trio, a big brush
drummer and an all-around side guitar player (and other instruments like the
mando). Thompson broke the performance up into two parts, a solo set of six or
seven numbers high-lighted by Vincent Black Lightning, and Dimming Of
The Day which was fine. The second part based on a new album and a bunch of
his well-known rock standards left us shaking our heads. Maybe the room could
not handle that much sound, although David Bromberg’s five piece band handled
it well a couple of weeks before, or maybe it was the melodically sameness of
the songs and the same delivery voice and style but we were frankly
disappointed and not disappointed to leave at the encore. Most tunes didn’t resonant although a few in
all honesty did we walked out of the theater with our hands in our pockets. No
thumbs up or down flat based on that first old time set otherwise down.
However, damn it, Bob Dylan does not have to move over, now. Our only consolation that great working-class
love song, Vincent Black Lightning, still intact.
Which brings
us to one of those sketches I did based on Brother Thompson’s glorious Vincent
Black Lightning. When I got home I began to revise that piece which I have included
below. Now on to the next act in the great quest- a reunion of the three
remaining active members of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Jim Maria Muldaur, and of
course Geoff at the Club Passim (which traces its genesis back to the folk
minute’s iconic Club 47 over on Mount Auburn Street in Harvard Square. We’ll
see if that gets the thumbs up.
On The Nature of True Love-In Search Of
The Great Working Class Love Song- With Donna Walker, North Adamsville Class Of
1964, In Mind
*********
The search, the everlasting search as
it turned out, for the great working-class love song, was prompted by a question
that Sam Lowell had been asked about a few years before from some old North
Adamsville high school classmates who had contacted him to cut up old torches
via a circuitous route, hell, a byzantine route, or byzantine –worthy, that he
would describe some other time since to stop for it then would have snagged the
question to death - what music were you listening to back in the day? Back in
the early 1960s day when the music was exhausted and they, he and those inquisitive
classmates were waiting, waiting impatiently, or he was, for some fresh breeze
to come from somewhere after Elvis died (or might as well have died, died army
died, died Hollywood movie died, squaresville died, when he retired his hips,
his snarl, and his nerve and let Tin Pan Alley rather than the back street juke
joint down in black night Clarksville or some honky-tonk, good old boy honky-tonk bar in back alley
Memphis turn his head), Jerry Lee was busted up with some second cousin(and the
hoped for mantle-passing faded after the blast promise of High School
Confidential on the back of a flatbed truck turned to ashes and a corny
reefer-free B-film, a premature jailbreak minute turned to ashes in our
collective youthful mouths not then used to such mortalities), Chuck was out of
circulation for messing with Mister’s women (a more serious lesson but what did
we, white kids all, all, to a person, know of such race things, race divides,
race records, miscegenation, lust , all we knew was Roll Over Beethoven a
new beat was in town and we approved), and we were stuck with a batch of songs
and singers who made us want to head back to mother womb 1940s music, some
Inkspots, pre-doo-wopping, some Lena Horne stormy weather, or some such, that
at least had good melodies.
Well, for Sam at that point at least
that subject was totally exhausted. He no longer wanted to hear about how his
dear AARP-enrolled classmates (distaff side, he presumed) fainted over Teen
Angel (the saga of some dippy frail who was so off-center that she flipped
out when she found out her boy’s class ring was back in some railroad track
stalled car-and she went back, RIP angel), Johnny Angel (just some
hormonal hyperbole about some side-burn corner boy with tight white tee-shirt,
tight jeans, tight, but don’t tell her that), or Earth Angel
(ditto on the tight, but girl tight, the only girl tight that counted, cashmere
sweater, skirt tight). Christ there were more angels around then than could fit
on the head of a needle or fought it out to the death in John Milton’s epic
revolutionary poem from the seventeenth century , Paradise Lost.
Moreover, Sam had had enough of You're
Gonna Be Sorry, I'm Sorry, and Who's Sorry Now. What was there to be
sorry about, except maybe some minute hurt feelings, some teenage awkward
didn’t know how to deal with some such situation or, in tune with the theme
here, some mistake that reflected their working class-derived lacks, mainly
lacks of enough time, energy and space to think things over without seven
thousand parents and siblings breaking the stream. And a little discretionary
dough would have helped(dough for Saturday night drive-ins, drive-in movies,
hell, even Saturday night dance night down by the shore everything’s all right)
to take some teen angel somewhere other than the damn walk to the seawall down
Adamsville Beach.
And no more of Tell Laura I Love Her,
Oh Donna, and I Had A Girl Her Name Was Joanne, or whatever woman's
name came to mind. Sweet woman, sweet mama. sweet outlaw mama, or just waiting
to be an outlaw sweet mama in some forlorn midnight Edward Hooper Nighthawk coffee shop waiting for the
next best thing to show up and get the hell out of Dudsville, USA (or universe)
Red Molly, all dolled up in her black leather put them all to shame, yah, she
put them all to shame. And set off by her flaming red hair making every boy
dream, dream restless night dreams, until James took over and then you had best
not look, not if you wanted to keep your place in the sun, or breathe to find
your own leather tight woman. Guys tried, guys tried and failed as guys will,
so be forewarned. So it was time, boys and girls, to move on to other musical
influences from more mature years, say from the post-traumatic stress high
school years.
But why the search for the great
working -class love song? Well, hello! The old town, old beloved North
Adamsville, was (and is, as far as Sam could tell from a recent trip back to
the old place) a quintessential beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday
working -class town (especially before the deindustrialization of America which
for North Adamsville meant the closing of the shipyards that had left it as a
basically low-end white collar service-oriented working -class town, dotted
with ugly, faux-functional white collar office-style parks and malls to boot
making a mockery of the granite origins of the place). The great majority of
the tribe in those days came from working- class or working poor homes. Most
songs, especially popular songs, then and now, reflected a kind of "one
size fits all" lyric that could apply to anyone, anywhere. What Sam was
looking for was songs that in some way reflected that working- class ethos that
was still embedded in their bones, that caused their hunger even now, whether
they recognized it or not.
Needless to say, since Sam had had
posed the question, he had his choice already prepared. As will become obvious,
if the reader has read the lyrics below, this song reflected his take on the
corner boy, live for today, be free for today, male angst in the age old love
problem. However, any woman was more than free to choice songs that reflected
her female angst angle (ouch, for that awkward formulation) on the working-
class hit parade.
And a fellow North Adamsville female
classmate did proposing Bruce Springsteen’s version of Jersey Girl and
here was Sam’s response to the interchange on this choice:
“Come on now, after reading these
lyrics [Richard Thompson’s Vincent Black Lightning,
1952] is any mere verbal profession of undying love, any taking somebody on
a ride at some two-bit carnival down on the Jersey shore going to make the cut.
(Big deal, he was not going to hang with his corner boys, who he was heartily
tired of anyway, or walk the streets looking for hookers to be with his honey (in
the Tom Waits cover anyway). That self-denial was supposed to be something for
her to appreciate, that she was better than some whore, Jesus. I am thinking
here of the working class song suggested to me by a female classmate, Waits
cover version of Bruce Springsteen’s Jersey Girl where they go down to
the Jersey seashore to some amusement park to while the night away in good
working- class style, cotton candy, salt water taffy, win your lady a doll, ride
the Ferris wheel, tunnel of love, hot dog, then sea breeze love , just like our
Paragon Park nights, some buying of a one carat gold ring like every guy on the
make is promising to do for his honey if she…, or some chintzy, faded flowers
that melt away in the night, or with the morning dew going to mean anything?
Hell, the guy here, the guy in Vincent Black Lightning 1952, bravo James, was
giving her, his Red Molly, HIS bike, his bike, man. No Wild One, Easy Rider,
no women need apply bike night. HIS bike. Case closed.”
The reader might think, well, big deal
he gave her his bike as a dying declaration, taking such an action as so-so and
just a guy trinket love thing, not the stuff of eternity. No way. Sam knew of
at least one female, Donna, Donna of the tight cashmere sweater and tight,
tight black skirt, of the raven black hair, noted above in the dedication, who
might relate to this song. Who knew that her Johnny, Johnny Shine, when he came
up and scooped her away from tough guy corner boy Red Radley one cloudy night
and roared off into the world on his Indian that he would play the gallant for
her, and when he fatally fell on some fog-bound back slick back road at one
hundred and thirty miles per hour he became a local legend. And she kept his
bike as a shrine to his memory.
Sam also knew at least one male, who
shall remain nameless (since he is still alive and still looks to Sam like he could
still break Sam in two if provoked), who snuck out the back door of old North
Adamsville High with another classmate, a female classmate, to ride his bike,
and a few others things, down by the secluded beach things, during school hours
back in the day. It was in the air in those heroic days. So don't think Sam had
forgotten his AARP-approved medication, or something, when he called this a
great working class love song. Romeo and Juliet by what’s his name,
Shakespeare, was nothing but down in the ditch straight punk stuff compared to
this. And as Sam insisted on repeating for the slow learners here, the guy, his
boy, his universal corner boy James, in the song gave her HIS bike, man. That
is love, no question.
ARTIST: Richard Thompson
TITLE: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Lyrics and Chords
TITLE: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Lyrics and Chords
Said Red Molly to James that's a
fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any
such like
Said James to Red Molly, well my
hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and
cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my
favorite color scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride
/ A - - - D - / - - - - A - / : / E
- D A /
/ E - D A - / Bm - D - / - - - - A -
- - /
Said James to Red Molly, here's a
ring for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a
dangerous man
I've fought with the law since I was
seventeen
I robbed many a man to get my
Vincent machine
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the
love of you
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to
ride
Come down, come down, Red Molly,
called Sergeant McRae
For they've taken young James Adie
for armed robbery
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left
nothing inside
Oh, come down, Red Molly to his
dying bedside
When she came to the hospital, there
wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was
running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
And said I'll give you my Vincent to
ride
Says James, in my opinion, there's
nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed
girl
Now Nortons and Indians and
Greeveses won't do
They don't have a soul like a
Vincent 52
He reached for her hand and he
slipped her the keys
He said I've got no further use for
these
I see angels on Ariels in leather
and chrome
Swooping down from heaven to carry
me home
And he gave her one last kiss and
died
...Oh yeah, case you forgot righteous James gave Red Molly his bike to ride...his BIKE man. Enough said
...Oh yeah, case you forgot righteous James gave Red Molly his bike to ride...his BIKE man. Enough said