More Lyrics from "One of These Days"
One of these days it will soon
be all over cut and dried
And I won't have this urge to go
all bottled up inside
One of these days I'll look back
and I'll say I left in time
Cause somewhere for me I know
there's peace of mind
I might someday walk across this land
Carrying the Lord's book in my hand
Goin' cross the country
singin' loud as I can
One of these days
But I won't have trouble on my back
cuttin' like the devil with a choppin' axe,
Got to shake it off my back, one of these days
One of these days it will soon be all over cut and dry
And I won't have this urge to go all bottled up inside
One of these days I'll look back and I'll say I left in time
Cause somewhere for me I know there's peace of mind
There's gonna be peace of mind for me, one of these days
Someday Soon (Judy Collins, 1968)
One of These Days (Emmy Lou Harris, 1975)
Surprise-- to me. These songs were recorded only seven years apart and both are by strong, independent female artists, and both are unusually polished and crisp recordings with outstanding session musicians. They even have similar intros, one with steel guitar, one with electric. And they are both about women on the cusp of breaking out. But Judy Collins is waiting for her man to make her life happen; Emmy Lou Harris is about to make it happen for herself. Both feel constricted by their families, and can't wait to leave and stretch out their minds, if not their bodies.
I won't have to chop no wood
I can be bad or I can be good
I can be any way that I feel
One of these days
My father says that he will leave me crying
But I would follow him right down
The toughest road I know
Someday soon, going with him, some day soon....
Judy Collins was a soulful interpreter of great songs by the outstanding singer- songwriters of the 60's, Dylan, Cohen, Rush, Ian Tyson. She was a romantic, and I personally found her a bit suffocating at times-- too many whale songs and saturated memories of dreamy trips to Paris or smudgy interior emotional landscapes. Emmy Lou Harris leaned a bit to country, and added some memorable background vocals to Gram Parsons, Neil Young, and Dylan. Her songs are always tasteful and restrained-- she resisted the temptations that made very good singers like Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn go very bad.
Might be a woman that's dressed in black
Be a hobo by the railroad track
I'll be gone like the wayward wind one of these days
Unlike Collins, the narrator of "One of These Days" isn't counting on being rescued by some man. She's going to break out on her own, and be her own person. Collins' narrator is waiting for her cowboy to come so she can follow him wherever he goes. Okay-- the song was written by a man, Ian Tyson, after all, whose woman, Sylvia Fricker, eventually chose not to follow anymore. In fact, Sylvia Tyson basically decided she could be "any way that I feel" and went to work for the CBC in Toronto while Ian cooled his cowboy heels at his ranch in Alberta, writing soulful ballads about how wonderful it was to ride your horse, look at the mountains, and live alone.
So should I add Sylvia Fricker's "River Road", another fine song about escape, into the mix?
Here I go, once again
With my suitcase in my hand
And I'm running away down River Road...
Once again, like Harris, she isn't waiting around for the cowboy. There's an odd verse in "River Road":
Well I married a pretty good man
And he tries to understand
But he knows I've got leaving on my mind these days...
When I heard that line, I immediately thought, "the man is real". She's talking about someone real, whom she knows will hear the song-- he's "pretty good", and she pulls her punches: she has leaving "on her mind" these days... This isn't The Dixie Chicks' "Earl".
When I get that urge to run
I'm just like a kid again
A 12-year-old jail-breaker running away...
And we can add one more: Lucinda Williams' "Side of the Road". The narrator tells her man to pull over, she needs to get out of the car and stand in the tall wet grass and be alone--.
I wanna know you're there,
but I wanna stand alone
If only for a minute or two
I wanna know what it feels like to be without you
I wanna know the touch of my own skin
Against the sun, against the wind...
Okay -- two more: isn't the marvelous "Anchorage" by Michelle Shocked really about the same thing, contrasting two women who made different choices? Her friend:
Hey, 'Chell, I think I'm a housewife...
But the narrator:
New York City, imagine that!
What's it like to be a skateboarding punk-rocker
Copyright © 2007 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved.
Best Looking Earnest Female Folk Singer Primarily Known as Interpreter of Other People's Great Songs:
1. Emmy Lou Harris
2. Sylvia Fricker/Tyson
3. Joan Baez
4. Judy Collins
Best Looking Female Folk Singer Songwriter:
1. Fiona Apple
2. Sylvia Fricker
3. Feist
Least Best Looking Folk Singer
Song-writer:
Tracey Chapman -- sorry. But it's okay-- she really wouldn't care what
a man might think of her looks anyway.
The Man's Perspective: Runaway, by Del Shannon. If he doesn't know why why why she left, he should listen carefully to the three songs discussed here.
