Standing like a stone on the old plantation...

...rich old man would have never let him in
Good enough to hire, not good enough to marry
When it all happens, nobody wins

While rocking out in my Rainforest Green 2000 Ford Focus this afternoon on the drive home, I got to listen to what has rapidly become third in the three-way tie for my favorite song. I have decided that Bruce Hornsby, and Bruce Hornsby alone, is fit to give social commentary in song. In that song, "The Valley Road", he sings, of course, like an angel: yet, how many of you have listened carefully to the words? None of you, I betcha. It's a song about a small-town abortion. Oh yes.

While no one was lookin' on the old plantation
He took her all the way down the long valley road
They sent her away not too much later
And left him walking down the old valley road
Walk on, walk on alone
Walk on, walk on, walk on alone

Out in the hall they were talking in a whisper
Everybody noticed she was gone awhile
Somebody said she’s gone to her sister’s
But everybody knew what they were talking about

While no one was lookin on the old plantation
He showed her what they do down the long valley road
She came back around like nothing really happened
And left him standing on the old valley road
Walk on, walk on alone
Walk on, walk on, walk on alone


The second favorite song is now his "Across the River", which talks about how much it really reeks to live in small, creepy-conservative towns. Bruce Hornsby: man for the ages, I tell you what.

My favorite song is still "Valerie" by Steve Winwood, which is about drug addiction and suicide. You'd never know it, though: the fancy synthesizer covers up any trace of sadness with the bliss that is really really fantastic 80s music.

I've compiled my favorite songs into three burned CDs; appropriately they are called "Mega Dom." I am mocked incessantly about my choice in music, but I think that what is happening is this: all y'all are hopelessly jealous of how cool I am and how fantastic my taste is. It's true.

It's Friday night, and like many other twenty-something males I am in my pajamas at 9:45 with a pumpkin-spice candle ablaze cradling an ethnography about gender in Turkey while preparing to watch Snow Falling on Cedars. In the semi-darkness my Swedish wall-hanging of Krishna fondling his be-noseringed consort dances in the candlelight, and the light flickers in the eyes of my 70+ masks. One of my Ghanan masks speaks to me in whispers when I turn my lights out; our secret conversations sustain me. My GOD I need a life.

In my computer's CD player is a fun Turkish folk song entitled Urfa'nın Etrafı.

Urfa'nın etrafı dumanlı dağlar aman aman
(Urfa's surroundings are smoky mountains, oh my)
Ciğerim yanıyor yar yar gözlerim ağlar
(My heart is on fire, my love, my eyes are weeping)
Benim zalım derdim cihanı yakar aman aman
(My heartache could set fire to the whole
world, oh my)

Gezme ceylan bu dağlarda seni avlarlar
(Don't go, my love, to these mountains; they will hunt you)
Anaydan babaydan yardan ayrı koyarlar
(From your mother, your father and your lover they will take you)

Urfa dağlarında gezer bir ceylan aman aman
(In Urfa's mountains wanders a gazelle, oh my)
Yavrusunu yitirmiş yar yar alıyor yaman
(Her calf is lost, she weeps piteously)
Yarimin derdine bulunmaz derman aman aman
(In my love's grief no strength can be found, oh my)

Gezme ceylan bu dağlarda seni avlarlar
(Don't go, my love, to these mountains; they will hunt you)
Anaydan babaydan yardan ayrı koyarlar
(From your mother, your father and your lover they will take you)

How uplifting. Also, kinda random. In some parts of the song, "ceylan" is a beloved person, and then in others it's actually, literally what it is: a gazelle. So, if you see a gazelle, and she is weeping, put down that issue of Newsweek and help her find her mothertouching calf so that I can study Turkish folk songs that make some damn sense. Don't get me started on "Sobalarında Kuru Da Meşe." Let's just suffice it to say that I think crack was commonly used in Anatolia as far back as the 1500s.

Well, it's nearly tomorrow and I am going to rest my weary carcass for once this week if it kills me.

Good night, Indiana.

Dom