In a conflict that exemplified the military axiom that soldiering is 99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terror, the blue and the gray called timeouts from opposition to trade tobacco for coffee, share food, relate war stories and converse about home, or play cards during downtime on the battlefield.It is easy to see these truces as moments of humanity, when men demonstrated that despite their differences, something kind and brotherly remained inside them. “They forget that they are enemies and a kind of chivalric honor and courtesy are strictly observed,” meeting “in so friendly a way that one would have thought they were the best and most loving neighbors in the world,” according to The Soldiers’ Journal of Oct. 5, 1864. But according to Bearss, “the older the war gets, the more the soldiers move toward hatred.” By the time the war moved onto northern soil in Gettysburg, “They really don’t like the sons-of-bitches,” he says of the armies, and the powwowing dropped off. --Sue Eisenfeld, Disunion:Breaks in the Action" NY Times, Feb 7 2014
The New York Times has had a series commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War called Disunion running on the OPED pages a couple of times a week or more since 2010, and it's well worth reading. Most of the Times OPED series are well worth the effort, whether The Stone which addresses contemporary issues in Philosophy, Disunion, or Measure for Measure which allows various musicians, producers and critics to reflect on the craft of songwriting, traditions and so on. Occasionally, there are some weird juxtapositions that make you wonder if the OP-ED staff is prescient, incredibly lucky or just very good at what they do. In the Measure for Measure Piece, on February 7, 2014, Rosanne Cash discusses the problems inherent in approaching the past in song and art while providing some marvelous examples of how it's best done. In doing, she highlights one of the songs from her most recent album, The River and The Thread. In many ways, this album completes her period of mourning the death of her parents as well as June Carter and other members of the extended music family of Johnny Cash. At the same time, it addresses some fairly timeless and really important issues in the on-going history of the United States, and what in fact the relationship of the South to the North is, should and can be. She does so through a series of road songs of trips she and her husband-producer-co-writer and musical director John Leventhal took from her home town of Memphis in recent years; but in fact, it reflects a spiritual journey that she has taken through the history of her family. I consider it a masterpiece...a travelogue of miracles and wonders to steal a phrase from another New York based poet and writer, Paul Simon. Days of Miracles and Wonder.
I had been utterly unable to crack the code of how to write these kinds of narrative ballads myself until I was writing the songs for my new album, “The River and the Thread.” In the past, I was intimidated. I felt self-conscious drawing characters out of thin air, or presuming to reassemble the life of a real historical person. I couldn’t find my way in. In the fall of 2012, my son was working on an eighth grade Civil War project. I mentioned to him that he had Cash ancestors on both sides of the Civil War, and I went to the Civil War database to research it with him. There materialized before us a photograph of one William Cash, lieutenant in the Massachusetts Eighth Infantry. He had enlisted on April 30, 1861. April 30 is my wedding anniversary. A little spark of an idea. I looked further and found William Cashes in several Southern regiments as well: Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee. This all made sense, as my family genealogy records the arrival of the first Cash, also a William, in Salem, Mass., in the 17th century, and the next generation spilling down to Virginia, where my direct line begins. -- Rosanne Cash, Time Travel and the Ballad Tradition, NY Times, Feb 7, 2014
Rosanne Cash has written in number of other places about her relationship with the south. She was born in Memphis, moved as a child to California, visited John during the summers, bonded with June and the Carters, lived in Nashville until her marriage to Rodney Crowell disintegrated and then moved to New York City where she met John Leventhal and has become a member of the singer-songwriter-artist-knitting community of Manhattan... So her relationship to the South is intriguing at least. She sees herself as a New Yorker (she got to sing Tumbling Dice at a well known annual concert in NYC benefiting local charities, and blogs from Zone Five.) but she is by blood, birth and mind a Southerner, with a broader, and somewhat amazing perspective. The cover of the album was taken by John Leventhal standing behind her on the Tallahasse Bridge. She sings of starting at the beginning in a world of strange design.
Well you’re not from around here/ You’re probably not our kind
It’s hot from March to Christmas/ And other things you’ll find
Won’t fit your old ideas/ Their line is shifting sands,
You walk across a ghostly bridge/To a crumbling promise land
If Jesus came from Mississippi/ If tears began to rise
I guess I’ll start at the beginning/ The world of strange design
So, the album is an American with Southern Roots dealing with what it means to be "American by Birth and Southern by the Grace of God" as the old T-shirt put it. I think she might reverse them, but the issue is there to be dealt with, by her and by all the rest of us. She acknowledges how hard this can be metaphorically by discussing the writing of the song. John Leventhal and Rodney Crowell collaborated on a number which she finds hard to explain. (I actually don't find it at all hard; Crowell often tells the story of Johnny Cash looking at him unhappily when he drunkenly challenged the old man about not being willing to act like "no damn hypocrite" with the response, "Son I don't know you well enough to miss you when you're gone." Crowell always prefaces it with a statement of respect to Rosanne and John Leventhal, adding that if you ever want to sober up a man, think of him weaving drunkenly in front of Johnny Cash and hearing that. Kind of like God telling you that you were really kind of irrelevant to the conversation, weren't you?)Robert Hilburn mentions how John tried to be loyal to his daughters when their marriages dissolved with people he'd become fond of by keeping his distance but that illusion always broke apart. He proudly claimed that if he could get his son-in-laws and ex-son-in-laws to agree, he could form a hell of a band. -- Crowell, John Leventhal, Marty Stuart, Nick Lowe for starters.)
In an January 2014 interview with American Songwriter, Rosanne addressed the issue of being Southern.
There’s part of me that’s always cared about the South and felt at home there. During these trips, as I said, the physical and geographical connections to place came alive again. The rich, beautiful, dense, and weird South is the South I love. Do you ever read that magazine Twisted South? (laughs) I love that magazine because it captures these aspects of the South. This new album explodes the stereotypes about the South and embraces them at the same time. You know, all these things happened that made me feel a deeper connection to the South that I ever had. We started finding these great stories, and the melodies that went with those experiences.
Rosanne mentions that her daughter, Chelsea Jane Crowell who is making a lot of noise in Alt Country circles also wrote a civil war ballad entitled and it has a unique and special feel, discussing the effects of the war on people trying to survive in the world..."Momma took a gamblin' man and let Daddy hit the fan/And Salty bet our land and lost it all on one hand...All that's left is one oak tree, a swaybacked mule and a cotton see, and where the hell is Robert E. Lee?" This is a sharper, angrier song that raises the question what the hell was this war all about...and, even 150 years later, it's hard to separate the results from the purpose on both sides.
Roseanne's song, When the Master Calls the Role, is less about anger and more about sorrow, love and resolve. When it was ready to record, friends worked sang with her while John manned the producer's desk and got it together. The song is a superb piece of historical balladry and a great performance by Ms. Cash, Mr. Crowell, John Prine, and Kris Kristofferson. The link is to a performance she did during a 2013 residency at the Library of Congress. (After the song, John Leventhal resolved the whole issue of his relationship with Rodney Crowell, saying that Rodney is his "husband in law...")
Girl with hair of flaming red Seeking perfect lover/
For to lie down on her feather bed Soul secrets to uncover/
Must be gentile, must be strong With disposition sunny/
Just as faithful as the day is long And careful with his money
And so the open letter read The news boy did deliver/
Three months later plans were made to wed Down by the King James river
Know the season may come Know the season may go
When love is joined together With whoever be made whole
When the master calls the roll
Oh my darling will you leave? Take me to the altar/
I don’t have strength to watch you as you leave/
But my love will never fault her
Oh my darling Marry Anne The march to war is calling/
Somewhere far across these southern lands/ The bands of brothers falling
My tender bride, the tides demand That I leave you with your mother With my father’s riffle in one hand Your locket in the other
Know the season may come Know the season may go
Beware the storm clouds gather Take heat in warm of soul
When the master calls the roll
But can this union be preserved? The soldier boy was crying /
I will never travel back to her But not for lack of trying
It’s a love of one true heart at last That made the boy a hero/
But a riffle ball and a cannon blast Cut him down to zero
Oh Virginia once I came I’ll see you when I’m younger/
And I’ll know you by your hills again This town from 6 feet under
Know the season may come Know the season may go
A man is torn asunder But someday we may know
When the master calls the roll
(To be continued...)
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