Pickin' The Tune

Country- especially bluegrass- music always seemed to me to be an adolescent fairyland. I mean look at the lyrics. They are so simple-minded that its almost laughable. Especially now that my band’s performing Doc Watson songs and the like, the lyrics make me laugh from here to Tennessee. Believe me, its beautiful music, and the level of musicianship in crafting them is superlative. But the lyrics? That’s something else altogether. Let’s take this particular song that we’re doing… “Peach pickin’ time in Georgia”, by Doc Watson. Its his song, but could well be a traditional. It certainly is very topical. Its about this down-at-heels farmer, who’s looking forward to getting married, or, getting some sex.
“When its peach pickin’ time in Georgia
And apple pickin’ time in Tennessee,
Cotton pickin’ time in Mississippi
And everybody picks on me
When its roundhouse time in Texas
And the cowboys make whoopee
And way down in old Alabamy
Its gal-pickin’ time for me”
You can almost see the ol’ white Southern kid in a peaked hat hacking away at the cotton under the burning summer sun, while images of sun-kissed thighs flash through his mind. He thinks of Caroline somewhere in Arkansas and starts humming of his simple dreams of ‘gal-pickin’. Anywhere will do, it seems…and anyone. Oh those Denver doldrums, Alvah Goldbrook would say. It’s a silly song really. But like all silly songs, it makes you smile in spite of yourself. And there’s always Doc Watson’s voice. It could be the voice of one of the gents on Mount Rushmore. It could also be the voice Walt Whitman. It’s the voice of America, and when it yodels, it melts the cockles of your heart.

Note. For those of my readers who complain that I write of things very few people either know or care for, here’s some info to keep you pickin’.
The song’s by Doc Watson, a county-bluegrass legend who, at 94, is still one of the best around. Alvah Goldbrook is a fictional name for the poet Allen Ginsberg in Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road.’