Month: November 2019

In Seattle in the early 1950s, our church sponsored the Moorbeeck family from the Netherlands.  Members provided housing, food, and clothing, and one of the congregation found Mr. Moorbeeck who was, I think, a draftsman (or draughtsman, if you prefer) a job.

Displaced persons, they were called. As a seven-year-old limited to linear thinking, I understood that there was some place for the family to be that they were not.  I think—I hope—I felt as sad about that as a seven-year-old could be before moving on to the challenges of second grade and Little League.

In his “Country Music” film, Ken Burns used displacement to describe much of what that genre of music has been about. I hadn’t thought about that term much in the past 65 years.  But, the narrative thread of the program supported the point on two levels. Country songs are often about loss or not fitting in or aspirations for what cannot be, like the love of some person who does not even notice the hopeful one.

Further, country music comes from the hearts and souls of people whom the dominant American culture has discounted as “hick” or “hillbilly,” made to feel like second-class citizens in their own land. 

The program chronicled American history from 1920 on though its focus was not the history but the music called “country.”  One point came through loudly and clearly: the current social climate is not nearly as fractious, as threatening to our way of life as have been other times.

Thirty percent of the people out of work in the 1930s caused massive shifts of population—displacements—within the U.S.  Fighting two powerful enemies in two different hemispheres obviously altered hundreds of thousands of lives in our country as well as overseas (creating displaced persons like the Moorbeecks). In the 1960s, helmeted police and National Guard stood in ranks several deep all with loaded rifles pointed at groups aggrieved about racial injustice and Vietnam.

Through those tumultuous times, country singers continued to lament, pine for, and regret past sins that fractured their lives. Displacement seemed the norm.

Displacement persists around us if we dare to listen to despondent cries we dare not hear.  Dare not because there are so many, at home and abroad, whose lives are a daily manifestation of being somewhere they are not supposed to be, either physically or metaphorically.

In just one example, a recent Atlantic article chronicled the like of Aung San Su Chi of Myanmar(Burma). Once a political prisoner and symbol of the desire for freedom, she is now part of the government.  That government has systematically displaced its Muslim population, the Rohinga, killing thousands and forcibly evicting others from their lands.

What would that feel like, to be evicted from your long-term home?

Driving to the Kapolei post office one steamy morning, Judy and I watched while a man wearing a long black overcoat and slippers, gray hair matted and dirty-looking, cross the street.  We assumed he was headed for his spot in the park, home to several homeless.  He looked much older than we are but we know it was possible we were his elders.

This man represented a persistent displacement in our own community, whatever the reasons might be for living in a park.

World history of the last decade chronicles displacement: Syrians, North Africans, Central Americans.  Where do you go when it is no longer safe for you to be where you are?

A few years ago, I wrote about a “sense of place.” What is it like to not have a sense of a place to belong?

People of a Certain Age, you might recall a TV ad years ago featuring a man who looked Native American shedding a tear over the thoughtless littering plaguing the landscape. (That Iron Eyes Cody was actually Espera Osker de Corti, a fact my friend told me, is typical Madison Avenue magic.) Do you suppose Iron Eyes might shed another tear these days over the pervasive sadness of displacement, here and abroad?

We cannot explain why some populations, which are comprised of people like you and me, have suffered displacement due to war, famine, dangerous environs or deliberate evictions and others have not. We tune out the cries of desperation in self-defense, knowing that some problems are beyond individual capacities to help.  We cannot take on every ill in the world. We do contribute to organizations that try; churches, Rotary, World Vision, etc. That helps.

“Country Music” suggested something closer to home.  To the extent that groups in our society feel like they are second-class citizens, we can draw our circles “wider to include them in.”  We can offer more handshakes than cold-shoulders.  We can create a place where, political opinions and religious differences notwithstanding, none of us feel like we are in a place where we are not supposed to be, wherever we are.

Actually, I think those places are here among us now but the din of disaster sells more newspapers.

Daniel E. White

November 25, 2019

Judy and I were watching the fourth two-hour installment of “Country Music, the film by Ken Burns on PBS. I observed that we were probably like a sizeable segment of the audience who were watching because it was a Ken Burns production.  Over time, many have appreciated his storytelling, whether about the Civil War or Jackie Robinson or a form of American music we seldom listened to intentionally but often heard because of its ubiquity.

Burns’ work has always struck me as visual scholarship, appealing to people like us who like learning new things or hearing new takes on old things, like the Civil War.

As the narrative took us from Jimmy Rodgers to Hank Williams, Patsy Cline to Loretta Lynn, the Carter family to the Judds, I wondered how popular the show was with those who had grown up with country music in the way I was drawn to the Beatles, the Lovin’ Spoonful, and the Eagles. To my unschooled eye, just about every icon in that world of music enjoyed some time in the spotlight in the film.  It seemed a resource to be treasured by those wanting a visual memory bank about the story of the genre.

So how is it that simple tunes played on string instruments with plain-spoken lyrics can survive the ebbs and flows of transient popular culture and hold the attention of our national videographer and a broad audience for ten two-hour segments?

It did not take me too long to see an obvious point. Two groups of people, possibly from different sections of the nation, probably reflecting a wide diversity of backgrounds and education, were watching the same show.  I mentioned that in a phone conversation with my sister.

“That’s the power of art to unite,” she said.

In Burns’ show, Winton Marsalis called music “the invisible art.”  I wonder if the true power of art lies not only in its capacity to unite but also in its capacity to engage the listener or viewer in an unspoken conversation that invites one to identify, to find common ground, to understand something differently.

Country music, because of its story-telling nature, uses the words as well as the music to spell out some aspect of the human condition. Who hasn’t, at some moment in life, been “so lonesome I could cry?”

The film described how country music popularity has waxed and waned while its core soul has remained constant. There have been detours, flirtations with influences from rock and folk music, seductions into glitzy show productions. But country always returns to its roots.

The art form reflected the social unrest of the 60s and 70s yet stuck to those messages that range true no matter your politics.  Heartache is not partisan. Loneliness persists in war and peace.

People of a Certain Age, you might be like me, struck by how many country songs we recognize though we didn’t listen to country music stations or buy its albums.  (You DO remember albums, right?) How did that happen? Especially if the people we hung out with tended toward folk music with a social agenda or rock and roll suitable for dances. 

One episode of Burns’ series was called “Don’t Get Above Your Raisin.” There is an explicit humility in the message, connected to my parents reminding me to be a good reflection on our family or Judy’s grandmother counseling “remember who you are.” What a genteel way to admonish young people to avoid the sin of pride.

(Ignore for the moment the deleterious impact of discouraging aspirations that could be the product of not getting’ above your raisin’; the British class system comes to mind.)

Have you ever heard a country song where you could not hear clearly every word? I think back to my music growing up.  There were several number one rock hits I liked but for which I needed to consult some printed source to grasp the whole message.  When your music consists of a guitar or banjo and a story, your story better be told really clearly.

Burns offers the insights of several country artists, all of which sound good. But they are insiders. What about those of us, who make a subconscious connection to a musical form to which we’ve never devoted a full measure of attention?

Each of us would probably answer that question differently. Perhaps, though, that is the point. In its simplicity, raw emotion, occasionally toe-tapping way, the music invites us to share our take on what it is like to be a human being.  We can shake off the dust of daily doses of doom and gloom, be “crazy” about someone, be “lonesome” enough to cry, try to “walk the line, because you’re mine,” sing about the blues we have from our respective “prisons.”

The stories in country music ignite our own stories. And don’t we all enjoy reveling in those?  

Daniel E. White

November 11, 2019