Blackwater…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km4-eKvv3EM

 

Blackwater… Doobie Brothers

Black Water Lyrics – What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits

 

Patrick simmons

“Well, i built me a raft and she’s ready for floatin’
Ol’ mississippi, she’s callin’ my name
Catfish are jumpin’
That paddle wheel thumpin’
Black water keeps rollin’ on past just the same

Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Yeah, keep on shinin’ your light
Gonna make everything, pretty mama
Gonna make everything all right
And i ain’t got no worries
’cause i ain’t in no hurry at all

Well, if it rains, i don’t care
Don’t make no difference to me
Just take that street car thats goin’ up town
Yeah, i’d like to hear some funky dixieland
And dance a honky tonk
And i’ll be buyin’ ev’rybody drinks all ‘roun’

Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Old black water, keep on rollin’
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep on shinin’ on me
Yeah, keep on shinin’ your light
Gonna make everything, pretty mama
Gonna make everything all right
And i ain’t got no worries
’cause i ain’t in no hurry at all

I’d like to hear some funky dixieland
Pretty mama come and take me by the hand
By the hand, take me by the hand pretty mama
Come and dance with your daddy all night long
I want to honky tonk, honky tonk, honky tonk
With you all night long”

When I was 13, my family drove from our home in Elkhart, Kansas to my sister’s house, near St. Petersburg, Florida. A long trip meant plenty of radio time for me. Elkhart was a cultural desert, if you were interested in any kind of music other than Country. Our best shot at rock, rythm and blues, or…. disco….. YES, I said disco…. was from KOMA am radio from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. KOMA was a top 40 format station that we only could get at night. 50,000 watts floated on the night airwaves and brought music from the “big cities” to all the rural, small town kids who had developed a taste for something other that Porter Wagner. The problem with KOMA was two-fold:

1- The signal faded. In fact, I got so used to static, I thought it was just some new music technology…. OK, not really, but FORGET decent sound quality from the radio…. You could also forget Jazz, Blues, Classical, Album Rock, or anything FM. AM was it at night and either Dick Clark  and American Bandstand on Saturday or maaaaybe Soul Train with Don Cornelius played usually in the dead of the night… which was pretty tragic, white kids needed a cultural education regarding the soul of disco and much of ’60’s rock… the music of Black folk.

2-Top 40 AM radio played the same songs….. to death! I never again want to hear You Light Up My Life by Debbie Boone, or All By Myself, by Eric Carmen. Never…. again…. 

Actually, AM radio almost ruined all of Fleetwood Mac’s best music for me. I GOT SICK OF IT… over and over and over. Anyway… I am getting therapy….

I don’t recall the first time I heard Blackwater, but I loved the Doobies and all their other stuff. For some reason, I came to associate the song with the trip to Florida. I remember driving through the night and waking up as we entered Mobile, Alabama. We had never been in Alabama before, and since our family travelled extensively, it was an event for mild celebration. Since our route took us near the port of Mobile, I remember the lights on the port cranes, and the salty smell of the Gulf of Mexico wafting through the open windows of the car as we sped along, ever South and East. I remember the moss hanging from the  trees, and the air plants growing  off the sides of the trees. We were really surprised that the interior of Florida was filled with pine trees and farms with grassland for livestock … I guess we expected palm trees or swamps… so we felt at home by the sight of western boots, hats, and belt buckles. All those began to disappear as we neared the coast, to be replaced by boat shoes, brightly colored floppy hats, and the sun-reddened, peeling skin of the tourist crowd.

I remember becoming part of the tourist crowd. Except my usual attire while in Kansas wasn’t western, but that of a small town jock, trying desperately to look like the athletes I saw on TV or in Sports Illustrated. On a trip to Busch Gardens in Tampa, I purchased a nylon mesh athletic shirt with my favorite number and name ironed on the back. Please understand, the shirt wasn’t the nylon too-wide-mesh-too-redneck-for-my-own-or-anybody-else’s-good-you-wanna-see-my-pecs shirt. Nope! It was small-hole-mesh. Tear-away jerseys were the trend in major college football at the time, and I mistakenly believe my new shirt was made of the same material. I also bought a white cotton visor. The trip to Busch Gardens and a trip on a boat into the Gulf, gave me the trite sunburn. But, I felt cool.

When we returned home, I remember riding my bike up to a little doughnut shop on main street… or at least I THINK it was a doughnut shop………. Actually, I don’t really remember what they sold… and whatever it was, it must not have been much, because it went out of business within a short period of time. What I DO remember, however, was that the shop had a couple pinball machines, a foosball machine, and a juke box with Blackwater on it. We would come in and just hang out there…… Oh… maybe THAT’S why they went out of business….. Anyway, I remember walking into that shop with my cool shirt, cool visor, tan-that-was-soon-to-begin-peeling, and shaggy blond hair coming out the top and sides of the visor. I was a seasoned, urbane world traveller, returning to the… “sniff”… sticks. To remind myself of the beach, and water, and sun, and bikinis, but also of the freedom of the road, and the pine trees, and moss-laced trees, and steel, light-topped cranes in the harbor blinking their presence to the blackened sky, I would put a quarter in the juke box, and play the Doobies…

Since then, Blackwater has returned me to the simplicity of  life left somewhere along the way. The smell of the sun tan lotion and salty spray  still whisper to me to return, but more to the point is a return to the enjoyment of life where I am. I hear the wind chimes in the beginning of the song, and tell myself, “Ok…relax… take in the beauty around you…. It’s there, but you have to slow down to see it.

Deep breath, now…

Keep on rollin’….

Keep on shinin’…

…ain’t got no worries….

…ain’t in no hurry…

…at all…

 

A Soundtrack of Life…

Music has always been not only a soundtrack to the stories of my life, but the ocean in which my heart floats. Music gives vent to my deepest emotions, articulates the honest thoughts of my soul, both soothes and enlivens me, and allows me to center myself  in the meditation of beauty. Particular songs link to certain personal memories: where I was, who I was with, what I was feeling.

This blog will combine the music of my life- past, present, and future- with the stories and thoughts they bring to my mind. I hope it becomes a place for YOU, the reader/listener, to also share your own stories and thoughts. I hope you also add to the playlist, music which has affected you.

What music helped you express joy, anger, loneliness, or love?

Have you heard a new band or artist that you’re adding to your favorites?

Are you finding old music that has openned itself to you in a new way?

Listen, remember, and share…