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I had an Isaac Hayes moment this morning. I listened to the rebroadcast of the Fresh Air interview with him night before last (which is really great, if you've never heard it), and today on some kinda random-ish shuffle the song "Galveston" comes on, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb. And, oh man, what a great goddamn song. There's this moment that's no accident at all, where he sings, "I am so afraid of dying" ...one beat ...two beats ..."Before I dry the tears she's crying." Like, I'm in some seriously godforsaken corner of hell, cleaning my gun, and I might not make it out alive, and I'm so afraid of dying... and oh yeah, my girl. It hangs in the air for these perfect couple of seconds, where all he is in the world is afraid of dying, full fucking stop. It gives me a chill, it really does. I think it's supposed to. Anyway, so that song comes on, and I remembered how my grandparents would take me to Galveston beach when I was a kid, and they would sing that song (just the chorus, of course), like it was a cheerful little pop tune about how nice the place is, which seems pretty sick to me now. They didn't know. And then I thought of Hayes' explanation of why he he decided to spend 8 1/2 minutes of his version of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" telling this long-ass and frankly rambling story that he totally made up in order to set up the scenario of the song: people just didn't GET it. Sometimes you have to hit people with a rolling pin. But when he did that, Hayes explains in that interview, "not a dry eye in the house." So I thought of "Galveston" and Galveston and all of a sudden I really wanted him to be around to explain to somebody, "This is a deep tune."
By which I guess I mean, RIP.
― kenan, Friday, 15 August 2008 18:14 (fifteen years ago) link