Country Music

“If it sounds like Country Music it probably is.”
-Kris Kristofferson

What is country music? ¿Música del campo, música de los campesinos? Country music somehow begins a little below the middle class, maybe a lot below, maybe even at the very bottom. It’s songs about people who are having trouble paying the rent, people who’ve been in jail once or twice, people who drink too much, people in pain. But even with all the pain they live with they are capable of seeing how big the world is and how they need to get out, how they need to escape. Most of the time they never make it out. That’s why there is country music.

It is difficult to translate so I will give some examples.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

by Kris Kristofferson

Well, I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad,
So I had one more for dessert.

Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt.
Then I washed my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.

I'd smoked my brain the night before
With cigarettes and songs I'd been picking.
But I lit my first and watched a small kid
Cussing at a can that he was kicking.

Then I walked across the street
And caught the Sunday smell of someone frying chicken.
And Lord, it took me back to something that I'd lost
Somewhere, somehow along the way.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone.

And there's nothing short a' dying
That's half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.

In the park I saw a daddy
With a laughing little girl that he was swinging.
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
And listened to the songs they were singing.
Then I headed down the street,
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing,
And it echoed through the canyon
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.

 

If You Could Read My Mind

by Gordon Lightfoot

If you could read my mind love,
What a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie,
'About a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet.
You know that ghost is me.
And I will never be set free,
As long as I'm a ghost that you can't see.

If I could read your mind love,
What a tale your thoughts could tell.
Just like a paperback novel,
The kind the drugstores sell.
When you reach the part where the heartaches come,
the hero would be me.
Heroes often fail.
And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take.

I walk away like a movie star
Who gets burned in a three way script.
Enter number two,
A movie queen to play the scene
Of bringing all the good things out in me,
But for now love lets be real.

I never thought I could act this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it.
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feelings gone and I just can't get it back.

If you could read my mind love,
What a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie
'Bout a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet,
The story always ends.
If you read between the lines
You'll know that I'm just trying to understand
The feeling that you lack.

I never thought I could feel this way
And I got to say that I just don't get it.
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feelings gone
And I just can't get it back.

Mendocino County Line

by Matt Serletic and Bernie Taupin

Counted the stars on the 4th of July
Wishing we were rockets bursting in the sky
Talking about redemption and leaving things behind
As the sun sank west of the Mendocino county line

Scarce as Monday morning feeling washed away
Our orchestrated paradise couldn't make you stay
You dance with the horses through the sands of time
As the sun sinks west of the Mendocino county line

I have these pictures and I
Keep these photographs to
Remind me of a time
These pictures and these photographs
Let me know I'm doing fine
I use to make you happy once upon a time
But the sun sank west of the Mendocino county line

The two of us together felt nothing but right
Feeling we're immortal every Friday night
Lost in our convictions lips stained with wine
As the sun sank west of the Mendocino county line

I don't talk to you too much these days
I just thank the Lord, pictures don't fade
I spent time with an angel just passing through
Now all that's left is this image of you

On the Road Again

by Willie Nelson

On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is making music with my friends

And I can't wait to get on the road again

On the road again

Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again

And I can't wait to get on the road again

On the road again
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends
Insisting that the world keep turning our way

And our way

Is on the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends

And I can't wait to get on the road again

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

by Hank Williams

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry

I've never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind the clouds
To hide its face and cry

Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die?
Like me, he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry

The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry 

Throwback Thursday

The American bluegrass version:

"Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"

Though I've tried before to tell her
Of the feelings I have for her in my heart
Every time that I come near her
I just lose my nerve
As I've done from the start

Every little thing she does is magic
Everything she do just turns me on
Even though my life before was tragic
Now I know my love for her goes on

Do I have to tell the story
Of a thousand rainy days since we first met
It's a big enough umbrella
But it's always me that ends up getting wet

(Chorus)

I resolve to call her up a thousand times a day
And ask her if she'll marry me in some old fashioned way
But my silent fears have gripped me
Long before I reach the phone
Long before my tongue has tripped me
Must I always be alone?

Will the citizens of Barcelona revolt against soaring tourist numbers?

From The Guardian

With the Catalonian city hosting five times as many visitors as 20 years ago, there is a feeling among some locals that the financial benefits are not worth the hassle (bother, nuisance, trouble).

First there were mutterings (mumble, murmur, grumble) then there were street protests, but now Barcelona is showing signs of “tourist phobia”, the city’s guides are warning.

As many as nine million visitors are expected in Barcelona this year, crammed into a few small areas of a city of 1.6 million inhabitants, more than five times the number who visited 20 years ago. With the weak euro attracting ever more tourists, and as many as 2.5 million visitors disembarking from cruise ships a year, residents are feeling besieged.

“People push us, give us dirty looks and make nasty remarks when we’re showing tourists around,” said Mari Pau Alonso, president of Barcelona’s Association of Professional Tourist Guides.

Even Jordi Clos, head of the city’s hoteliers’ association, which wants to see visitor numbers rise to 10 million, says there is an “urgent need” to make citizens more sympathetic to tourists, given the “sense of being overwhelmed” that people have experienced in recent years.

“If we don’t want to end up like Venice, we will have to put some kind of limit in Barcelona,” said Ada Colau, the city’s new mayor, shortly after she was elected in May. She is proposing a moratorium on new hotels and licenses for apartments rented to tourists.

A survey for the Exceltur tourist group revealed that there are now twice as many beds available in tourist apartments – some 138,000 – as there are in hotels.

Tourist flats offer a more attractive and economic deal to visitors, and their owners can expect rents at least 125% higher than they would receive from long-term tenants. While many are let through large online organizations, such as Airbnb, others are offered by homeowners trying to make ends meet during Spain’s prolonged recession.

Tourists spend 25m euros (£18m) a day in the city, and the industry accounts for 15% of Barcelona’s GDP and about 120,000 jobs. No one wants to drive tourists away, says Colau, but if the city becomes a “theme park” people will stop coming.

Ciutat Vella, the heart of old Barcelona and one of the most popular districts among tourists, has lost 13,000 residents in eight years, driven out by high rents and the relentless noise of tourism. Many areas, such as the famous Las Ramblas or the area around the Sagrada Familia church, are in effect no-go areas for residents.

Colau suggests encouraging tourists to visit other parts of the city, but visitors are drawn to the old city, the Antoni Gaudí buildings and Barceloneta’s beaches. The city is the Mediterranean cruise capital and ships, some carrying thousands of passengers, have a huge impact. Passengers are disgorged at the city’s main sights and then leave, having bought little more than a souvenir and a bottle of water during their time ashore.

Their social impact is seen by many as hugely outweighing their financial contribution, leading some, Clos among them, to suggest a tax on cruises. So far (thus far = hasta ahora), the 7m euros annual tax on hotels has been spent on promoting tourism, but the Catalan parliament is now considering using it to alleviate the industry’s effects.

Francesc Muñoz, professor of urbanization at Barcelona’s Universitat Autònoma, goes further. “Why can’t hotel chains finance schools and nurseries?” he asks. “Why can’t cruise companies pay for roadworks?” That way, he argues, residents would see some palpable return for putting up with the tourist invasion.