Always About the Lyrics

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 2014.

           True story: Folk singer Woody Guthrie, who had stood with the unemployed at the height of the depression, watched as thousands of Oklahomans, and Kansans, and Texas panhandlers headed west to California during the dust bowl, was incensed over Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” that melding of civil into religion that should give any devout Christian pause. Guthrie’s response was to pen “This Land is Your Land”

            “This land is your land, this land is my land

            From California to the New York Island;

            From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters;

            This land was made for you and me.”

            I love that song. I love the imagery Woody Guthrie creates with Biblical clarity as “the fog was lifting, a voice was chanting, this land was made for you and me.” The lyrics; it is always about the lyrics. They can move you, sustain you, give you hope. Nowhere is that truer than in here.

            Each morning around 4:00 I begin my day with the Episcopal liturgical calendar. I’m not Episcopalian, but on my 50^th birthday a dear friend delivered the Episcopalian “Book of Common Prayer” to me at the jail. I’ve had it with me ever since and begin each morning with the day’s verse selections. Each day begins the same with Psalms, lyrical poems of praise, or anger, or fear, or just asking God “why” – why this, why me? Each morning I take a 3X5 index card and jot down a verse to contemplate throughout the day. The Psalms, those lyrical, powerful, gut-wrenching Psalms, provide me clarity – and hope.

            I don’t get most music today. I’m stuck in a warp of great old tunes, songs that mattered. I don’t get singing – or rapping – about “bling,” and Hennessy, and large butts, but I pause and think often of Peter, Paul and Mary singing “If I had a Hammer” or “Blowin in the Wind.” Folk singer Pete Seeger penned “Where have all the Flowers Gone.” He was blacklisted and attacked by a drunken, hateful Senator McCarthy during the red baiting of the ‘50s. Pete just kept on singing … about civil rights, and war, and the water. McCarthy fell and died in alcoholic oblivion; Pete kept singing into his 90s.

            They told Peter, Paul, and Mary if they marched in Selma they’d never sell another record south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The trio said the music mattered more than record sales. For almost 50 years they sang – in the face of Nixon’s battle with Vietnam War protesters, in El Salvador standing with the churches decrying the killing by both left and right. The lyrics mattered. The lyrics always matter.

            Almost every blog I write has some song lyric or Bible verse attached. Those words give me direction. I keep a large folder of song lyrics in my locker, close to two hundred songs. There are songs that speak of heartbreak and lost love; songs of the future; songs of protest. Each one contains lines which cry out with emotion and truth. And truth is so hard to find these days.

            Today begins the Christmas season, Advent, the coming of the long-expected Messiah, Emmanuel, “God with us,” Hymns, beautiful hopeful hymns I recite as I run the track. And, while hearing those songs, I remember John Prine’s “Christmas in Prison.”

            “It’s Christmas in prison

            There’ll be music tonight

            I’ll probably get homesick

            I love you. Goodnight.”

            Psalms, songs, poems, lyrics all speaking to who we are, who we want to be. The lyrics matter, especially in here.

 

Full of It

One of my favorite holiday comedies is “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”. In one particularly hilarious scene, Clark (Chevy Chase) looks out his front window and sees his half-wit cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid), wearing an obviously too short robe and boots, draining his motor home commode directly into the rain grate at the curb. Eddie looks up, sees Clark watching him and shouts “shitter’s full”. I thought about the scene as I read the March 13th entry in Virginia Statehouse News discussing prison overcrowding.



“Virginia’s state prisons are so packed that nearly 3,700 state remanded inmates are being housed in local jails,” per DOC spokesman Larry Traylor.


Traylor further added, “state prisons are filled to 165 percent design capacity. The number of prisoners at each state prison facility is limited in part by water and sewer capacity…”


Heh, Virginia, shitter’s full.


Less than two months ago the Richmond Times Dispatch wrote a glowing editorial about then Governor Allen being a genius for abolishing parole. The editorial talked about “a glut of beds” in DOC facilities. Mr. Traylor, curiously, was silent.


I wrote a scathing rebuttal to the editorial. I’m no genius, but just by spending an hour inside the wire and you quickly recognize the prison system is grossly overcrowded, incompetently managed and a significant drain on the Commonwealth’s resources. Do I feel vindicated that DOC has finally admitted the obvious? A little. But, vindication won’t come until a politician (take a hint Governor McDonnell) has the courage to push for early release. Without sentencing reform, the system will never be fixed.


Last term, the United States Supreme Court heard an appeal from California over their overcrowded prison. Ten years ago inmates won a federal lawsuit against California arising out of the abysmal living conditions present in prisons holding inmates at 177 percent of capacity. The Federal courts ordered California to alleviate the overcrowding problem. For ten years, California did nothing.


Finally fed up with the state ignoring the rule of law, the court ordered that 40 percent of the system’s inmates be released. California reacted with shock. “You want us to do what?” Virginia isn’t far behind. There is absolutely no reason for the vast majority of inmates currently housed in Virginia’s prisons to remain there for the life of their sentences. The prison system does absolutely nothing to correct the behavior that led to the crime. It is nothing more than a warehouse; providing inadequate care, treatment and living conditions for 38,721 adult inmates (as of September 30, 2009). Virginia’s prisons are, in fact, criminal.


But, admitting the system is full isn’t easy. Consider this “brilliant” insight from Virginia Delegate David Albo (R-Springfield), “there are no nonviolent offenders in prison.” Really? So drug users are classified violent? Probation violations? Driving charges? Grand larceny and embezzlement? Never knew that Del. Albo. Apparently neither does the Virginia Sentencing Commission or the Virginia Courts who specifically classify those listed crimes as “nonviolent”.


For giggles and grins, let’s agree with Del. Albo. Every “bad person” in prison is here for a violent crime. Why then, do states with more progressive sentencing and early release options show: (1) lower crime rates and (2) the same recidivism rate as Virginia? What is clear on its face is Del. Albo points out, the hypocrisy of Virginia’s current prison system. There’s no “correction” in this system. There’s only punishment, pain and retribution. And, those three things belong in the sewer, not as government policy.


I heard Peter, Paul and Mary sing “Where have all the flowers gone” the other night. As they sang the chorus again (“when will they ever learn?”) I thought about Mr. Traylor’s admission and Delegate Albo’s ignorance. When will Virginia learn? Prison reform – early release, effective rehabilitation programs – must be implemented. The system is full!