DJ Allyn’s Fantastic Jukebox

Current List          Pop Out Jukebox          Request a Song

(685)

Copperhead Road ~ Steve Earle

Posted on by
Reply

Steve Earle is an American singer-songwriter, well known for his rock and country music, as well as his political views. He is also a published writer, a political activist and has written and directed a play. In his early career, he was seen as a saviour of country music and hailed by some as the “new Bruce Springsteen.” In the later part of his career, after troubles with the law, drug addiction and his uncompromising viewpoints, he has become known as “the hardcore troubadour”.

Copperhead Road

http://djallyn.org/media/Steve_Earle-Copperhead_Road.flv

Well my name’s John Lee Pettimore
Same as my daddy and his daddy before
You hardly ever saw Grandaddy down here
He only came to town about twice a year
He’d buy a hundred pounds of yeast and some copper line
Everybody knew that he made moonshine
Now the revenue man wanted Grandaddy bad
He headed up the holler with everything he had
It’s before my time but I’ve been told
He never came back from Copperhead Road

Now Daddy ran the whiskey in a big block Dodge
Bought it at an auction at the Mason’s Lodge
Johnson County Sheriff painted on the side
Just shot a coat of primer then he looked inside
Well him and my uncle tore that engine down
I still remember that rumblin’ sound
Well the sheriff came around in the middle of the night
Heard mama cryin’, knew something wasn’t right
He was headed down to Knoxville with the weekly load
You could smell the whiskey burnin’ down Copperhead Road

I volunteered for the Army on my birthday
They draft the white trash first,’round here anyway
I done two tours of duty in Vietnam
And I came home with a brand new plan
I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico
I plant it up the holler down Copperhead Road
Well the D.E.A.’s got a chopper in the air
I wake up screaming like I’m back over there
I learned a thing or two from ol’ Charlie don’t you know
You better stay away from Copperhead Road

Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road
Copperhead Road

The original moonshiner’s ballad was made famous by Robert Mitchum in the song, The Ballad of Thunder Road, that he wrote for the movie of the same name. (264)

Mayonnaise and Beer

Posted on by
Reply

by Anonymous
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours
in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar…and the beer.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in
front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very
large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it
was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them
into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the
open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if
the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a
box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up
everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students
responded with an unanimous “yes.” The professor then produced two
cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the
jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students
laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to
recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the
important things–your family, your children, your health, your
friends, your favorite passions–things that if everything else was
lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles
are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car.
The sand is everything else–the small stuff. If you put the sand into
the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf
balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on
the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are
important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your
happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be
time to clean the house, and fix the disposal. “Take care of the golf
balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The
rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer
represented.

The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you
that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a
couple of beers.” (125)

Love Reign O’er Me ~ The Who

Posted on by
1

The story covers about five days of the life of a certain Jimmy, a participant in the circa 1964 Mod lifestyle in England. “The story is set on a rock!” announced the composer, Pete Townshend, at one live performance, indicating that the opera represents Jimmy’s looking back at the events of the previous day or two that led him into the gloomy situation where he finds himself at the end of the story. The narrative is difficult to derive from the lyrics alone, but becomes clearer with the benefit of a short story (also written by Townshend) related from Jimmy’s first person perspective, that is included in the album’s booklet.

The first half of the opera consists of songs that allude to the frustrations and insecurities that govern Jimmy’s life, including brief glimpses of his home life, his job, his psychoanalyst, and his unsuccessful attempts to have a social life. Halfway through the opera he sings “I’ve Had Enough”, finds himself kicked out of his home when his parents find his box of ‘blues’ (blue pills of some unnamed drug, possibly amphetamine) (this happens in the song Cut My Hair). Distraught and with nothing better to do, Jimmy takes a large dose of blues and takes a train ride to the coast (Embodied in the song 5:15, which is supposed to be the time when the train departs). During his stay near the beach in Brighton, he encounters the former “Ace Face”, the leader of a group of Mods, whom he admires greatly. However, “Ace Face” now works as a bell boy at a nearby hotel. Ironically, this is the very same hotel Ace Face had smashed the windows of two days before. This display of masculine bravado had earned him the admiration of many of his fellow Mods two days before during Jimmy’s first stay in Brighton. Jimmy is disgusted to learn that the person he had admired as a Mod had “sold out”.

At this point, Jimmy is inconsolable. Everybody from his parents to his girlfriend had disappointed him before, but he had never expected the Mod lifestyle to let him down. Drunk and depressed, he steals the now former Ace Face’s scooter from the front of the Brighton hotel where he is employeed, takes it out to a barren rock protruding from the sea, and crashes psychologically. With nothing left to live for he finds redemption in the pouring rain, which is expressed in the final song, “Love, Reign o’er Me”.

Love, Reign O’er Me

http://djallyn.org/media/the_who-reign_oer_me.flv

Only love
Can make it rain
The way the beach is kissed by the sea
Only love
Can make it rain
Like the sweat of lovers
Laying in the fields.

Love, Reign o’er me
Love, Reign o’er me, rain on me

Only love
Can bring the rain
That makes you yearn to the sky
Only love
Can bring the rain
That falls like tears from on high

Love Reign O’er me

On the dry and dusty road
The nights we spend apart alone
I need to get back home to cool cool rain
I can’t sleep and I lay and I think
The night is hot and black as ink
Oh God, I need a drink of cool cool rain

(165)