Craig and Music — they always went together.
Today’s theme is “My Man” by the Eagles (Written by Bernie Leadon). This was written as a tribute to Gram Parsons, one of Craig’s favorites who died in 1973. It is framed by beautiful music, a wonderful chord progression and signature sweet harmonies by the group. But the lyrics — ahhh … the lyrics.
“My Man” from On The Border – 1974
Tell me the truth, how do you feel?
Like you’re rollin’ so fast that you’re spinnin’ your wheels?
Don’t feel too bad, you’re not all alone
We’re all tryin’ to get along
With ev’rybody else try’n’ to go their way
You’re bound to get tripped, and what can you say?
Just go along ’til they turn out the lights
There’s nothin’ we can do to fight it
No man’s got it made till he’s far beyond the pain
And we who must remain go on living just the same
I once knew a man, very talented guy
He’d sing for the people and people would cry
They knew that his song came from deep down inside
You could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes
And so he traveled along, touch your heart, then be gone
Like a flower, he bloomed till that old hickory wind
Called him home
My man’s got it made
He’s gone far beyond the pain
And we who must remain go on living just the same
We who must remain go on laughing just the same
My first exposure to The Eagles was their 2nd album “Desperado.” Of course, it was Craig who exposed me to it.
After he graduated high school in 1972, Craig got two jobs in St. Joe, MO. One was driving a truck and running a humongous vacuum for a furnace cleaning company. The summer after my junior year in high school at Wathena, KS my parents allowed me to move in with Craig and “batch.” I became his assistant on the furnace truck. We would get a list from the company of five or six addresses and go clean ’em out.
The back of the truck was a huge vacuum cleaner powered by the PTO (Power Take-off)shaft. We hooked a huge hose (probably 8″ diameter) into the truck and connected it to the central HVAC unit (usually in the basement). Then one of us would go through the house room-by-room with a handheld blower (smaller than a leaf blower but larger than a hair dryer) and shoot forced air down the vents so run the debris into the central unit to be sucked into the truck. The other one of us would stay with the truck to make sure the vacuum unit didn’t conk out or the truck didn’t roll away (it was in neutral while the PTO was working).
It was weird — walking through peoples’ houses, seeing all their stuff, seeing them at their everyday at-home experiences.
Craig’s other job was maintenance man at a small apartment building. He got a stipend plus a free basement studio apartment. I stayed with him that summer, and we rotated sleeping on the couch or the bed.
After coming home from furnace cleaning, Craig would make the rounds of the trash chutes to see if any were clogged, and collect the garbage bags at the bottom to haul to the dumpster.
One of his favorite hobbies was dumpster diving.
He got a lot of cool swag from the dumpster. When someone moved out, they usually cleaned out anything they didn’t want to haul. One time, a fellow dumped all of his bowling shirts — and he had been a fanatic, a member of several teams. Unfortunately we were too big for the shirts but they were just right for brother Bart (who was in 7th grade). The sponsor was an electrician or company, and the person’s name was embroidered on the breast pocket — Ray Walker. Bart wore the shirt many times many places and sometimes people (who didn’t know him) would greet him as “Ray.”
Craig even found food and drink in the dumpsters, and — being young and foolish — I will admit we ate and drank. Especially the time he found a bit of gin left in a bottle. I had never tasted gin (of course, I was under-age), and the first sip of it nearly knocked me over. I’ve never developed a taste for gin. I think a martini is more of a macho rite of passage than an enjoyable drink.
But in the evenings, when work was done, we would listen to records and play the guitar. “Desperado” was a frequent choice.
It is set up as a concept album, an allegory of rock stars as old-west outlaws. Since I was starting to get the hang of the guitar, I set out to master all the songs so I could perform them in order.
A few years later, when we formed The Bunkhouse Boys and actually played in public, our songlist was heavy on Eagles tunes. They were extremely influential on us.
Craig was always partial to the classic country songs, and after a few albums, the Eagles changed personnel and moved more toward rock songs, so we didn’t keep up our faithful following of that group.
But the song, “My Man” always stuck with me, and I perform/performed it solo acoustic at various open mic nights and casual performances.
But nowadays — it is difficult for me to sing it all the way through without some tears forming.
All I can hope is that my man has it made, and he’s far beyond the pain.
And we who must remain, go on living just the same.