Orange Blossom Special

I have no idea why, but for some reason Johnny Cash always remindes me of my alma mater. I have only gotten into his music in the last eight to nine months, but I always associate his Ring Of Fire with a son of Abraham that I knew at the school; because he introduced me to all the punk covers of this great song. Also I associate the name Sue with a son of Ferrier at the school, this time because of a strange converstation I happened to be eavesdropping on.

I bring this up because I just saw a documentary about him on PBS. There where a lot of interviews with old country musicans. However they couldn't talk about why he is relevent to our generation, and indeed I cannot blame them how could they understand it? But his recordings of Hurt, Personal Jesus, Desperado, & Give My Love to Rose (all from the album When the Man Comes Around (the title song is still the best on the whole album)) will mean something more to my generation than they will to any other generation. (I try never to talk for my generation, but I an pretty familiar with it, after all I loved South Park, Garbage, and even (I hang my head in shame) Smash Mouth (I even whent to a concert by both bands).) His Hurt expresses so much more about the the human condition than Trent Reznor ever could. It expresses the existentail angst on the generation that has be decimated (more than decimated (which means one in ten)) by our parent's predilection for birth control and abortion.

Back to myself for a moment, I think I found out why I associate Cash with TAC. The song Sunday Morning Coming' Down! Granted, Cash did not write it. I think that more so than any other song it gets at the essence of that angst (different angst from the one above) of the hung-over TACer who has to go down to trhe commons for breakfast or lunch after all the sins he (or she) had commited the night before. Here are the lyrics,

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 mind the night before
With cigarettes and songs I'd been picking.
But I lit my first and watched a small kid
Playing with 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 schoo
lAnd 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.

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.