"A midlife crisis is a transition of identity and self-confidence that can occur in middle-aged individuals, typically 45 to 65 years old." -- Google
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Many years ago, 34 to be precise, I was driving alone in my car along a familiar route listening to my favorite country music station on the radio, when a new song came on that stopped me in my tracks.
I pulled off the road to listen. It was a mournful but uplifting song from Cajun country with a soaring accordion, drum beat and lovely melody. The singer's deeply resonant voice told the story of a man down on the bayou, smoking a cigarette alone on a humid summer's night, drinking beer, imagining his lover's voice trying to shake him out of a bad mood.
I loved it at first listen.
Though I heard it a few more times over the next weeks and months, it soon faded from airplay and I didn't hear it again for 33 years.
Last year, as I settled uneasily into my retirement/lockdown routine of sorting through the daily news, writing an essay, publishing it here on Facebook, I also started spending hours each day listening to music and interviews with songwriters on YouTube.
Some of this was pure entertainment (I'm retired so why not?) but some of it was research. Soon I began to append song lyrics to the end of each essay.
I began marveling at how vast YouTube's library has become; like its parent, Google, it just keeps expanding and deepening all the time. Both databases seem to grow at exponential rates.
One night last year I decided to search for that song I'd heard years ago. All I remembered was the phrase "C'mon Joe," so maybe that was the song's name.
After several nights of searching -- Bingo! -- I found a performance of the song, called "Come On Joe," at an early SXSW by the late Chris Gaffney. It was satisfying but it wasn't the version I remembered.
So from time to time over the past year I kept searching until two nights ago when YouTube finally turned up the version I remembered. It's by a Louisiana country singer and accordionist named Jo-El Sonnier -- his name suddenly came back to me the minute I saw it.
That version brought back all those old memories with a clarity only music can do, at least for me.
I'd been in the middle of an extended depression in the period when I fixated on that song. My sense was that literally everything about my outer life was going to have to change. I didn't know why; there was no obvious precipitating cause. It just was a restless feeling that welled up from somewhere inside and it could not be suppressed.
Because I tried.
It turns out that "Come On Joe" was Sonnier's only single to ever crack the country charts, getting as high as #17, so that's why I heard it back in the day. As I've played and replayed the song these past few days, Sonnier's voice from the backwoods not only takes me back to that period but brings me back from it as well, giving me comfort along the way.
Sonnier might find me a strange fan. I don't smoke cigarettes or drink beer on the back porch, and I'm certainly not from the backwoods of Louisiana, but Sonnier sings to me as clearly as any angel closer to home might do.
That is the power of art. And this post is sorta about the power of YouTube. Like Facebook, it has its positive aspects. I am now a follower of Sonnier on Facebook. He turns 75 this year. But the songwriter, Tony Romeo from New York, passed away in 1995.
I'd like to know his story.
***
For the first time in a year, I heard from an old friend from the assisted living facility where I lived until Covid struck. I had been a newcomer there, just two months in, and this guy was one of a handful of residents who befriended me. He's a character, a wisecracker who loves to play Dominoes.
He told me he got Covid in the facility but recovered. When he realized he couldn't stand the isolation of staying in his room and eating alone any longer, he moved out and in with a former neighbor, who offered to become his caretaker.
He told me a number of residents have died, one of whom was the sweet, friendly driver of the facility's van, who passed away from cancer just this January. I remember her as a cheerful grandmother in her early 60s, who took her grandchildren to Red Lobster on their periodic outings.
"They have such expensive tastes!" she would joke. "Why can't they just let me take 'em to McDonald's?"
Hearing of her death saddened me; hearing my friend's voice heartened me. Life goes on; it always does.
This has been a very long year. I think I'll listen to "Come on Joe" once again.
***
The news:
* Georgia G.O.P. Passes Major Law to Limit Voting Amid Nationwide Push -- The law, which has been denounced by Democrats and voting rights groups, comes as Republican-controlled legislatures across the country mount the most extensive contraction of ballot access in generations. (NYT)
* U.S. civil rights groups sue Georgia over sweeping new voting restrictions (Reuters)
* Boulder tried to ban assault rifles in years leading up to mass shooting (WaPo)
* The California Supreme Court determined that the state's policy of detaining people simply because they can't afford bail is unconstitutional. The court took on the case after San Francisco man Kenneth Humphrey challenged the $600,000 bail assigned to him in 2017 after he was accused of robbing a neighbor of $5 and a bottle of cologne. [HuffPost]
* Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned Democrats against running in the likely recall election, predicting that Governor Newsom will win. [Politico]
* A new study published in Science found that California’s pollution controls have reduced more emissions of diesel exhaust than the rest of the nation, lowering deaths from heart and lung disease. [CalMatters]
* Conservative news outlets, accused of election falsehoods, air disclaimers (Reuters)
* Dominion Voting Systems Corp said it filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News on Friday, accusing it of trying to boost its ratings by falsely claiming the company rigged the 2020 U.S. presidential election against Trump. (Reuters)
* Biden May Be the Most Pro-Labor President Ever; That May Not Save Unions (NYT)
* California state prisons will begin allowing limited in-person visitations on April 10, more than a year after they were halted because of the pandemic. [AP]
* Biden’s news conference was pretty boring. That’s just fine. (WaPo)
* New data from the Department of Education shows that California is one of the slowest states to reopen schools fully for in-person learning. [EdSource]
* Biden Administration Ramps Up Debt Relief Program to Help Black Farmers (NYT)
* Across the country, Asian-American entrepreneurs are spending money to secure their businesses, including hiring security and limiting hours, after what they say is a sharp rise in attacks on their businesses that the authorities are not taking seriously. (WaPo)
* Sticky bombs slapped onto cars trapped in Kabul’s chaotic traffic are the newest weapons terrorizing Afghans in the increasingly lawless nation. (AP)
* Preservative in Pop-Tarts, Cheez-Its, hundreds of popular foods may harm immune system (StudyFinds)
* Kansas City newspaper sends a warning with a blank front page -- declining ad revenue (WaPo)
* We humans have dumped on the poor pigeon for too long; it’s high time to admire this fascinating, fast, quirky bird (Seattle Times)
***
"Come on Joe"
And the stars are shining kinda extra bright
Sitting on the back porch glidin'
Whetting my appetite
And start missing the light of my baby's eyes
Wasn't it beautiful, the kind of a soul they said would never die
And the backwoods are black
'Cause the clouds hid the moon away
The light from my cigarette flickers in the dark
The only way she knows I'm here
Then suddenly the sounds of the fiddles and accordions
Sweetly begin to play and I can almost hear her sweet voice say
Pull yourself together again
And come on Joe, you gotta get hold of this mood you're in
Come on Joe, you gotta be strong
You're still young and life goes on to carry on
'Til we're together again
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