Art, whether it’s a poem, painting, dance, or a song, begins to breathe on its own. It begins to talk back and create its own terms. The artist learns to “listen” and becomes a servant to those terms. He gives everything to them, hopefully.
One example instantly comes to mind: The late Karen Carpenter started out like many singers. First, reluctantly. And like most of us, she had her favorite artists who she probably wanted to sound like. We take our cues from those who inspire us. Meanwhile. she entered her brother’s jazz band as a drummer. She sang the band’s songs, but no one paid much attention to her sound or style. Until one day, her brother, Richard, asked her to change key for the sake of a particular piece, which meant lowering her register. He wanted more mezzo-soprano/contralto.
Karen began singing, and suddenly those around her heard something they’d never heard before. Richard told her to stop and start again. She did, and he was simply floored. Something was born with which no other voice would ever compare (even to date), forty years (exactly) after her tragic death. Magic happened that day with one of the most beautiful voices ever put to celluloid (or tape).
Around that same time, in the late 1960s, a song was being written by another artist, for another artist. Most people don’t realize, even today, what the song Galveston was really about. Written by Jimmy Webb, sung by Glen Campbell, it’s about an Army recruit who finds himself in Vietnam. While listening to the bombs overhead, while polishing his gun and fearing death, he dreams of home. It’s an anthem, a tribute, to the thousands who did the same during that “ten thousand day” war.
Galveston came out in 1969 and was certified Gold that October. It was one of the signature hits that made Glen Campbell famous. But the strange thing about it was that not much else was said about it, lyrically or musically. Campbell simply kept singing it through the years (as it’s still heard today), while accompanying himself on guitar with orchestra.
Fast forward to 2012 and Webb and Campbell decided to reunite (Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb: In Session), and, maybe by sheer accident, maybe by suggestion, they agreed to play Galveston at a slower tempo. It almost immediately dawned on these two immensely talented artists that the song was being written “again, for the first time.” It meant the song had been done a grave injustice all those years. – Here was a piece still waiting, still protesting, still holding back, until it was played right. It was a magic moment, hence a poignant, frustrating one. What the world had been hearing was a song that really wasn’t finished. Still popular, still wonderful, but it hadn’t yet fully metamorphosed.
Jimmy Webb said this in 2012 during the session: “When we first recorded it I wasn’t complaining because it was Top Ten. As the years have gone by, the tempo seems to have settled on back to where it was originally meant to be. It was almost as though songs know where they want to be sung, they know how fast they want to be sung. If you try to sing them any faster, they creak and they protest and they complain until finally you get them back to where they should have been in the beginning.”
The song “creaked” on deaf ears and no one knew it. Tragically, this happens more times than not, not just in the music business but with art in general. In music, there’s the writer, then there’s where/when it’s recorded, and by whom. If the song is great, it’s going to be successful, even if the artist chosen to do it (the arranger, producer, engineer, orchestra/band) isn’t right. But writing the song is just the beginning of a delicate alchemy, a complex collaboration of converging forces.
I remember the country song Son of a Preacher Man, released in November, 1968, sung by British-born Dusty Springfield. An excellent piece, superbly rendered. It was almost too sensuous/sexually implicit for its time and place, but it became an international hit nonetheless. The only complaint came from other singers, like Aretha Franklin, who recognized the song’s further potential and wished she had found the song before Springfield did. She sensed it was still holding back, still waiting for something. Springfield actually agreed after hearing Franklin’s version, regretting that she hadn’t done it her way. – Again, another song (among thousands) which was holding off for the right singer, the right arrangement.
Listening to Galveston (reprised), one fills up with the same “after the fact” frustration that Campbell and Ellis must have felt. It echoed the very same artistic moments felt by artists in all mediums and genres. So many works still need (and deserve) redoing. It’s the old esprit d’escalier regret which can never be revisited or repeated. It’s simply too late. Fate plays its worst trick on us, then leaves us in the dust.
Indeed, there are many songs still waiting for the right alchemy, still fighting the wrong parts, while getting published before their time. The same applies to movie actors who should have either played a role, or not played a role. Actors and their scripts move into a symbiotic relationship. That is, the actor is only as good as the script given to him/her. Reversely, the script is only as good as the actor reading its lines. How many times have we watched an amazingly gifted actor look bad-to-average because of a bad-to-average movie role? Some scripts have even ruined careers. I can also think of a few films that made very bad actors/actresses look good only because the scripts were written specifically for and around them – perhaps as personal favors.
One very bad actress (name withheld) comes to mind, someone who became “a star” only because she was in a relationship with the film producer, who wrote an entire script around her. It “worked,” so well in fact that it was one of the highest grossing films of the decade, and she pressed her footprints into the wet cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Alas for her, every film she did thereafter did not come with the same serendipity. Each demanded a fair degree of “talent.” As it was non-forthcoming, she became, as they say in music, a “one hit wonder.” And, sadly for her, her affair with said producer ended. – An interesting footnote: It was Jimmy Webb who wrote the original score for that highly successful film, but it was turned down.
One hears about a writer/philosopher “the early years,” then his “later years.” In that case, the more adult and mature version can revisit his more naive self and try to mend his indiscretions. Many artists on the other hand simply refuse to “look back” because they don’t have that option. If they did, it’s almost futile in any case. Because the young and foolish version is already “out there,” and the public already rendered its verdict.
This is why Campbell’s/Webb’s reprise was basically a “for what it’s worth” session. They did it for themselves, just as a writer writes “for the drawer” and a painter paints just for pleasure. It comes down to self-satisfaction and finally giving a song all it deserves – if just for the hell of it. Galveston could have been re-recorded and published, but “why?” The times had changed, musical tastes had changed, the terms and conditions of “success” had changed. Wasn’t it simply better to flow with “what was” and just say hello again to an old song?
At least the song had been fully redeemed, many years later. It could finally rest in its intended form. It reminds me of something else as well: How many times has an artist come along at “the wrong time,” the wrong place, the wrong circumstances, with too many obstacles in the way? Only to be just the right artist at another time and place – for the same project? It sets in motion what I’ve always preferred calling “living in the subjunctive” – the world of “what ifs” and “if onlys.” (I’ve written about the subjunctive many times, most recently in The Dream Revisited in Dec. 2020). – Alas, asking “what if” never changes “what was.”
A song’s “intended form” becomes almost daunting, because we seldom know what that is. It makes us hesitate, fearful. It deprives the moment of its spontaneity and magic. We want to hold back and apportion our instincts. This is the insidious side of art-making. It wants to bring us out, while also warning us of stepping out too soon, too fast. It seduces and warns at the same time – the proverbial “push-pull” which destroys everything in the end.
And so, in the end, it finally comes down to “trust” and “letting go,” and saying to hell with the outcome. Seasoned artists like Campbell and Webb knew the costs of holding back, which was more about the cost of regret and embarrassment. They could not afford to think that, just maybe, they didn’t do it “exactly” right. Galveston was “what it was.” It was still an outstanding song, and that was good enough. There were no regrets in that respect. There were only the drippings of hindsight and sadness, that the world had not heard how it still longed to be heard after everyone tried, and failed, to hear it themselves.
© 2023 Richard Hiatt
The Subversive Imagination: Dispatches from the American Frontier 