I've been reading a lot about Hank Williams. Listening to his songs even more. Me and my boy are planning a trip to Montgomery this summer to go visit him.
Hank's is a sad story. He was born poor, partly disabled by spina bifada. His old man was sick in a hospital the boy's whole life and he was raised by a strong-willed mother. He sang songs on the street to get by.
They say his morphine/pain-killer addiction was brought on by his back problems. That's what they always say. Kurt Cobain was a junkie because of stomach problems, they said. Every junkie has his reasons. Every drunk has an excuse. If you distill the excuses down to their essences you usually find that some people just don't find life that amusing. Being drunk makes you happy, at least for a while.
Hank's joy was a drunk's joy. Booze makes a sad mind see the silly in things that aren't really funny. Your buddy falling down in a wet ditch and unable to get back out ain't really funny. Booze makes a man feel gallant committing acts that are not honorable. Dirty barroom brawls take on the character of incidents from Don Quioxtes Noble Acts and to a drunk it is somehow assumed that a swift smack across a woman's face will make her understand what it is you've been trying to say. She'll surely lay a big wet kiss on your drunk mouth—thankful like in those John Wayne movies. When you're drunk, booze is a wonderful thing.
But you can't stay that way. Tomorrow always comes, whether you care if it does or not.
And when tomorrow comes, she's still as gone as she was last night. That smack across the face don't achieve the John Wayne results. She'll call the police and your boy'll be calling another man daddy in no time at all. There'll be a tear in your next beer sure as shit.
The genius of Hank was that he knew all this and could put it in song. All the hell-raisin' he sang about was countered by at least as much remorse. He didn't sing the blues, he moaned them. He knew that every rambling man would end up on the lost highway and he tried to warn us. His voice was not a stranger's voice. It was our's. We knew him. His songs came from inside us.
Old Hank stood on the side of the road and told us where we were going. He knew what we'd done. Yes, it was funny sometimes—but you better watch out. You'll be telling that old dog to move it on over yourself, soon.
If you keep on it'll get serious. You'll be lost. Alone and forsaken, begging God to hear you and to please hold your hand. He warned us not to follow in his steps or we'd end up like him. Standing lost on the side of the highway.
He sang his songs from the side of that road and later on he died on it.
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