byrdsongs, xxiv

I guess what I was trying to say in my last post is that, if I’d just months earlier had my mind completely blown by The Notorious Byrd Brothers, a creative peak not just for the Byrds but for pop music as an art form, I think Sweetheart of the Rodeo would be a downer for me.  Luckily we don’t have to listen to these records in chronological order. Sweetheart can now be appreciated outside of its historical context as a very good country music record, with a few nods to rock ‘n roll here and there.  The song I’ve posted today, a real high plains drifter of a tune, is my favorite on the album. The pedal steel playing makes things canter along at a nice relaxed pace, giving off rustic good vibes along the way… For all its greatness, I wouldn’t characterize the Notorious Byrd Brothers as a relaxing album.  It’s fucking intense.  It’s not music I put on when I’m folding the laundry or washing dishes.  It requires your full attention.  I play it when I want to be moved spiritually, intellectually, viscerally.  Sweetheart is done with all that.  It reflects a desire to go back to a place where things are simple, everything’s done on a first-name basis, and time stands still. And you know what?  If I let my guard down and allow myself to go where Sweetheart wants to take me, I understand its appeal.  There’s something very attractive about trying to extricate oneself from the complex vagaries of modernity. It’s the allure of Jeffersonian Democracy, a nation of farmers and small shopkeepers living in a transparent world of their own making. Sweetheart makes a wish for this way of life.  I know that the wish is a fantasy, at least in the post-industrial world, but when I’m in the right frame of mind, relaxed and free of worry, I can give myself over to it for a few moments...