Old Pontiac

http://betterdaysradio.blogspot.com/

Mickey, you still out there?

Every time I hear
a rough-sounding Pontiac
I look to see if it’s you
young and lousy with urges
that had no chords yet to lie upon
riving through towns looking
or your next song
a warm place to sleep

Missed you by two nights in
sunlit Frisco, your show at the
Great American Music Hall
good enough to have the doorman
still talking about it as he
let me in to see Jerry Jeff

I’ve read most of the stories, how
you slept in laundromats and backseats
before you found out who you were
before America found out who you were
read about how you burned that
highway down in ‘59, a boy still
from freaky Houston
finding his way

When the Ponitac wouldn’t died
you fell in love with trains
hopping them, you and your guitar
town to town until you jumped off
for a gig just outside Beaumont
made one piss-poor landing
and broke your back in three places

Somehow after that, shrinking the pain
one night at a time over the next years
you managed to record three albums
in a garage called Cinderella
albums like nobody had done before

Looks Like Rain
Frisco Mabel Joy
Heaven Help The Child

They just didn’t fit anywhere
tracks bleeding together
sounds of rain falling, thunder cracks
wind singing up high in the attic
long lonesome trains blowing
blues harp in the night

You said you put those sounds on
to hide the tape hiss
from that lowly four-track
that birthed your early masterpieces
but it made those records
like an intimate call to an old love
at two in the morning, made from
some door-broken-off phone booth
and you sounded calm
in the eye of that storm
saying things that took us all
out on the road, made us shiver
light a candle for luck
and for love

Those records made it hard
for deejays to know where to lay
the needle down
so they didn’t play them
at least until all but the listeners
had gone to bed : they weren’t
flavour of the day anyhow
but the ballads of a man
who’d already died
and come back
wiser

When you arrived on Music Row
they didn’t know where to put you
Acuff-Rose showed some sense
you made friends with Willie, Tom T
lived an outlaw’s tale before
anybody called it that
maverick heart in a city of shills
one of the first to ever make
theme albums, held together
by pluck, by courage

It wasn’t long before
you had number ones on four
charts in the same year
nobody'd done that before
or again, and I think you got
a better car then, helped a young
Texan songwriter named Townes
get his his first record deal
later you were offered a lot of money
for that contract but wouldn’t sell
then ripped it up and
set Townes free

Took a janitor’s tape to Roger Miller
from a kid named Kris
the song was good, Roger recorded it
and in Texas a girl named Janis
heard it, recorded it too
busted flat in Baton Rouge
headed for the trains
and Kris was on his way
a friend for life

You had a lot of friends, Mick
and as good a songwriter
as you were, seems you
were an even better friend
Kris would say so
Townes, Willie, Waylon
all would say so
and front porches are falling down
under the weight of others
who’d say so, too

You made it through
ten records in twelve years
most of them damned good
but the business drove you nuts
lack of integrity and trust
the weasels and leeches
and you stopped making records
for seven years, stopped
seeking the spotlight at all

The papers printed rumours that
you’d become a no-name drunk
that you were driving a truck
delivering bread to folks who lived
too far from stores
somebody even said you’d died
talking about you on a radio show
in the past tense
and I suppose that's what
living out in Oregon will do

The past was tense all right
but didn’t kill you
just drove you up north
and west a ways
to a place outside of Springfield
a farm near the Willamette River
a wife named Susan
children and foster children
and a sunshine made more precious
by the frequency of rain

Mickey, I figure that’s when
your spirit’s whistling melancholy
was redeemed

I know it’s work keeping a farm going
being father, husband, provider
that maybe you had enough coming in
from royalties and residuals
from big ol’ El doing Trilogy
Ray Charles, Don Gibson, Solomon Burke
Waylon, Willie, Kenny Rogers
covering songs you’d written
and maybe it finally bought you
some time to take stock and see
how being true is the best
crop to plant in this
or any year

Still we wondered
where’s Mick gone?
and then the website pops up
a new front porch is built where
friends and others drawn to the music
could sit and chat for hours
and some nights, late
you'd post a grin
and the stars would
wink a little

You started making music again
on your own label at last
the rains of the northwest
adding its own soft touches
and some of those later albums
rank up there with the first ones
even better for their mileage
older the car the better the ride
for how it knows the road
flint-silver of your words
taking on some pewter
expanding as it cooled
your rust-heart tenor
aching so warmly
I couldn’t always give it up
to listen, had to come back
later when my joints
were better oiled

Then I heard you were sick
news breaking a rearview mirror
I couldn’t see in anymore
but knew that something was
closer than it appeared
and one night I heard the windchimes
from a tree in my backyard
a light mist of a rain losing its
breath in the leaves

It was the end of September '02
old Pontiac wouldn’t start
and all the jumper cables
of love in the world couldn’t
reset the beat of your heart

I had a feeling that across the
broken promise land of America
those who loved you, Mick
sat down all at once
and just felt something
like you feel when a bird flies by
real close to you
like that, a shiver

Mickey?

You still out there?

When it rains I know you are
when at night I hear the trains
I know you are

DL

Remembering Mickey Newbury, 1940-2002