She sat at the back and they said she was shy, She led from the front and they hated her pride, They asked her advice and then questioned her guidance, They branded her loud, then were shocked by her silence, When she shared no ambition they said it was sad, So she told them her dreams and they said she was mad, They told her they’d listen, then covered their ears, And gave her a hug while they laughed at her fears, And she listened to all of it thinking she should, Be the girl they told her to be best as she could, But one day she asked what was best for herself, Instead of trying to please everyone else, So she walked to the forest and stood with the trees, She heard the wind whisper and dance with the leaves, She spoke to the willow, the elm and the pine, And she told them what she’d been told time after time, She told them she felt she was never enough, She was either too little or far far too much, Too loud or too quiet, too fierce or too weak, Too wise or too foolish, too bold or too meek, Then she found a small clearing surrounded by firs, And she stopped…and she heard what the trees said to her, And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave, For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe.
And that reminded me of this; similar words, totally different tone:
In the 60s Lenny Bruce sneaked a stand-up routine about sniffing glue on to the Steve Allen show. It turns out the censors were so out of touch they had no idea that sniffing glue was drug abuse. They just thought it was an odd thing to do, like sniffing watermelons.
I used to hear this song on the radio in East Texas in the 70s. The only thing I can think of is that it's the same thing: they didn't really understand what they were playing:
One of the best things about the 70s was "concept albums." The album linked to above are twelve songs telling the life story of a cowboy named Gideon Tanner, and although some songs stand alone as nice singles, they all piece together beautifully to form a coherent whole.
When you have forty minutes to invest, give it a try.
Then, just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, ‘So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.’
And of course Buddy wouldn’t have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn’t see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick or couldn’t sleep.
And that reminded me of this depressing little ditty:
