Notes of Infamy: Paul Metsa's Song About the Shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald

Wednesday was the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. 

Today is the 60th anniversary of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald as he was being escorted out of the jailhouse. The event made an impression on me, as it no doubt did on many others who witnessed it as it happened.

The shooter was Jack Ruby. 

Bob Dylan wrote Murder Most Foul, a song about the shooting of the president. This other singer/songwriter from the Iron Range, Paul Metsa, wrote a song about the gunman who shot and killed the man fingered as JFK's assassin. You might call it Paul Metsa's "Signature Song." 

Moment of Impact

In the first one-third of this three-part drama, the song's structure is an echo of Frank Sinatra's "It Was A Very Good Year." Both tell the story of a life--Sinatra's being his own biography, Metsa's being Jack Ruby's, at 15 living in Capone's Chicago, at 21 taking an interest in guns, at 35 setting up shop in Dallas, etc.

The second act details the dramatic event at Dealey Plaza, culminating with the suggestion that Oswald was a patsy. The final third of the song explores the variety of theories as to what really happened in Dallas that weekend.

Metsa has a gruff attention-getting style of singing, and he's good at getting his blood up when singing this song. And it grows on you when he barks that chorus, "Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby in a Cavanaugh hat...."

Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby in a cavanaugh hat
Whoever taught you to shoot a pistol like that
Oh, you snuck in the basement and you stood in the back
Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby in a cavanaugh hat

Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby when you were fifteen years old
On the south side of Chicago you looked up to Capone
Stole girls lunch money beat boys on their way home
Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby when you were fifteen years old

Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby when you were twenty-one
you traded brass knuckles for a caliber gun
In the Sherman Hotel bootleg whiskey did run
Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby when you were twenty-one

Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby when you were thirty-five
Set up shop in Dallas, had nothing to hide
A nightclub with hookers and cops side by side
Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby, when you were thirty-five

Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby when you were forty-nine
At the Carousel Club you kept the judges in line
J. Edgar Hoover said there's no organized crime
Jack Ruby, Jack Ruby when you were forty-nine.

Read the rest of the lyrics here:
http://www.marcogiunco.com/Testi/001982_03.htm

Cavanaugh Hat from the JFK Presidential Library and Museum

Paul Metsa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNxKhY-C8MA

Bruce Cockburn's "Pacing the Cage": I Hear Rilke Echoes

Photo by mana5280 on Unsplash

Driving home from the pharmacy last night I was listening to The North 103.3 when a song came on that compelled me to listen. Each verse ended with the line "pacing the cage." The accompaniment was haunting and, for me, it brought to mind Rilke's The Panther. As the song was ending I was just pulling into my driveway. The radio host, thankfully, shared the title of the song and its creator, Bruce Cockburn.

As soon as I got in the house I looked to see if the song were on YouTube. After finding it I listened again while looking online for the lyrics. Then I listened yet again.

* * * * *

The power of Rainer Maria Rilke's The Panther is that it becomes a metaphor that most of us can relate to. It is a poignant portrait of something magnificent that has become impotent after being caged. There are all manner of ways in which we can become caged. How that affects us may not readily be recognized. When the loss of freedom becomes the loss of hope, we are doomed.

The Panther

His vision from the passing of the bars
is grown so weary that it holds no more.
To him it seems there are a thousand bars
and behind a thousand bars no world.

The padding gait of flexibly strong strides,
that in the very smallest circle turns,
is like a dance of strength around a center
in which stupefied a great will stands.

Only sometimes the curtain of the pupil
soundless parts--. Then an image enters,
goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs
--and in the heart ceases to be.

* * * * 

It is against this backdrop, Rilke's Panther, that I share Bruce Cockburn's poignant piece.

Pacing the Cage

Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it's pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

I've proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip's worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And every one was taken in
Powers chatter in high places
Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
Set me to pacing the cage

I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It's as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you'll wind up
Pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can't see what's round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage
Pacing the cage

© Rotten Kiddies Music Llc, Bro N Sis Music Inc

* * * * 

Here's the song on YouTube so you can appreciate the mood it creates.

URL:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNIFFZBfewo

According to Wikipedia, Bruce Cockburn was born three days after Bob Dylan's fourth birthday, May 27, 1945. Like Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, Cockburn is a Canadian-born singer/songwriter and guitarist. He's written more than 350 songs for 34 albums.

For poetry lovers, here's a web page that has assembled a variety of alternative translations for Rilke's Der Panther. Enjoy! http://www.thebeckoning.com/poetry/rilke/rilke3.html

Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

The opening track on side two of Judy Collins' Colors of the Day* is "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" Her delivery is heartfelt, poignant and moving. I've listened to it countless times over the years and it always soothes. The lyrics begin like this.

Across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving
How can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I do not count time
Who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

Time is experienced in many ways. There are the seasons, and there are the days -- sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset. Sometimes, when you are longing for something, time drags. Other times it seems to fly. 

The birds, in tune with the seasons, depart for warmer climates each autumn. But the narrator accepts the winter, lost in a different kind of time... that is timeless.

Sad deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving
Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go
But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving
I do not count the time
Who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?

The second verse addresses departure in a different manner. But our narrator is unconcerned, floating in that timeless sphere beyond it all. The reason is explained in verse three. She is not alone while her lover is near. And though disruptions occur, and he flies away, she knows that he will return, like the dawn, like the birds, like the ebb and flow of the sea. She's in that state of being where she's untouched, nourished by the painful sweetness of things we don't fully understand but accept. 

And I am not alone while my love is near me
I know it will be so until it's time to go
So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again
I have no fear of time
Who knows how my love grows?
Who knows where the time goes?

The song speaks of mystery, of something ethereal, indefinable. Resignation? Acceptance? Perhaps it's simply that sense of being immersed in timelessness. 

Where is this timeless place? It's an interior spatial plane, a place we miss because of the blistering pace of most of our lives. We rush about from here to there, escaping from our selves. 

In Psalm 23 the psalmist writes, "He leads me beside still waters." Those "still waters" are within. If we would just be still we could be comforted and nourished by them. 

* * * 

Myintroduction to Javier Bardem came via the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men. His portrayal of Anton Chiguhr, the villain he brought to life on the silver screen, was more than memorable. It also won him a well-deserved Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. And it stirred a desire in me to see more of his films. (I have since seen many.)

One of these was The Dancer Upstairs, directed by John Malkovich. It's a powerful film on so many levels. The casting is perfect, especially the lead characters played by Bardem and Laura Morante. (You can read my review here.) 

In the final scene, post-climax, there's a subtle resolution that takes place. The scene is accompanied by a soundtrack featuring another version of "Who Knows Where The Time Goes?" except it's not by Judy Collins or Sandy Denny, the song's author. Rather, it is Nina Simone, and it's an absolutely wonderful rendition, beginning with a lengthy spoken introduction, both in this recording and also in the film. The purpose of this blog post was, in part, to share this song:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXeh742_jak

* Colors of the Day is actually a Best of Judy Collins album, so the song originally appeared earlier, on the flip side of her version of "Both Sides Now."