If ever there was material for a solid country-western hit, today’s prompt is that material!
It practically sings itself, backed by a strong rhythmic structure and a heartfelt sentiment to boot! An evident iambic pentameter-driven, (absent the unspoken silent “Our” before the word “Home’s) opening phrase. With the “Our” it would be perfect iambic pentameter, the powerful choice of genius Shakespeare and how we normally talk in everyday English: {OUR} HOME’S THE PLACE WE HEAD FOR IN OUR SLEEP….da-DUM-da-DUM-da-DUM-da-DUM-da-DUM!!
A perfect, simple and true statement in poetic scansion of the simple life we all live.
WE all dream, we all sleep and we all yearn for home.
So, there’s much to be said for both the power of the simple poetic rhythms of our everyday speech, and the fact that we look to songs, poetry and the sheer putting together of words to supply us with the home we are constantly seeking…language as the reassurance that we all share that yearning, that we are all bound together by a shared need for a place to settle and feel most ourselves. And that’s why what we do – we writers -why what we do matters: like all artists, we show the way home.
I proffer , of course, that each and every one of us, is an artist in his or her own way, with something unique and necessary to offer the world if only we are brave enough to dig down, take a deep breath and shoulder the load…BUT, for reasons I cannot grasp, most people will not take on that responsibility….(using the word “responsibility ” to mean ” the ability to respond”) because to be able to respond means we have to be awake to all that surrounds us, and well….that’s a lot to ask of anyone…because the world is a full, heavy, gargantuan lot to take in, and most of us do not wish to feel so much ,or see so much all the time…we would rather nap, eat, drink, smoke, watch one more episode of LAW AND ORDER: SVU or plug in loud rock drowning noise ….or vote for the Party that thinks being “woke” is a crime in itself.
But I digress.
American country music is as hearty, wholesome and delicious as a bowl of oatmeal.
I adore all music (even the drowning loud rock kind), but country music, Nashville’s proud issue, pleases me in a way no other music can. Some would call it simple, but like all truly powerful things , when a truth enters the room, you know it, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of dressing up, complexity or explanation to tell that truth . Yes, Country music and its people are covered in rhinestones, glitter, sequins, gold fringe and false eyelashes, but the actual music itself if bare as the day it came out of the writers’ pen! No false eyelashes, no boob jobs, no nuthin’.
Country music says what it means and means what it says.
And isn’t that a relief?
You can actually hear what they want to say in the marvelous dramatic story -telling and once your ears understand , the heart can open, and tears can flow, or laughter can follow, or revenge can be righteously felt at the safe distance music supplies. We don’t have to shoot that unfaithful lover in real life but we are able to get a deal of deep satisfaction from someone shooting them in a song we play over and over again on our car radio….with the top down, along a lonely desert highway.
Of course in real life, plenty of people do shoot their unfaithful mates, stab treacherous partners and poison their closest pals, but music doesn’t pretend to cure a society….it can only hope to portray it, sing it, and even , in all its wretchedness, celebrate it.
And that’s a goodness only music can promise.
I say: any way we can celebrate the complex pain of existence , I say, let’s do it…loudly and as poetically as we can…..something about soothing the savage soul, right?
Right.