songs for broken hearts, no.18

The lonely one can’t really do Glen Campbell justice without including his pitch-perfect rendition of John Hartford’s Gentle on my Mind, which is far superior to the interpretation Elvis gave the song about a year later. The session players for the single read like a Who’s Who of 60’s LA studio rats – Leon Russell playing piano, Jim Gordon on drums, Doug Dillard picking the banjo... I have a complicated relationship with country music. I appreciate the old school purist stuff to varying degrees depending on my mood, but the singles in the contemporary country and western charts nowadays almost always have a corporate plasticity about them and give off a Born Again Hillbilly vibe that sounds like the soundtrack to a lynching. I guess you could say I’m heterodox about country music. I tend to like it plugged in, fused with rock, and performed by long haired hippy stoners. Gentle on my Mind is not the kind of thing that typically moves me, nor is it really a song for broken hearts per se. But right now it appeals to the dreamer in me because it’s such an earnest expression of love, admiration, and the warm feeling that comes with mutual understanding…