I’ve been really impressed by
’s writing lately. His last three posts (on Willie Nelson, Specific Moments in Songs, and Gladys Knight and the Pips) are all thoughtful, well-written, and deeply engaged with the music.He describes his substack:
I write about the ways that songs connect to the object world: how songs bring evocative objects to life; how songs become evocative objects that accompany lifetimes; how songs survive by attaching themselves to other objects.
Which got me thinking about songs that focus on a relationship with an object, or set of objects. Compared to some of my song lists, I am less confident in trying to come up with a set of songs in response to a theme and more interested in trying to think about how one might identify appropriate themes. For example, I started thinking about songs that express care towards and object but a couple of them use objects as a way of representing inheritance, and perhaps that should be it’s own separate theme1.
Here’s where I’ve been working on.
“Saben, The Woodfitter” — Gordon Bok
And then one day the old man looked,
and he saw the water coming into her.
So then by the day he'd bail
and by the night he'd sleep with his hand on her keelson,
to see when the water came.
And, sleeping, he heard the bell sounding the watch,
and he dreamed about the boat.
He dreamed he saw her building,
and he dreamed he saw her fishing,
and he dreamed he saw her dying in the sea.
This post is, possibly just an excuse to share this song, which I find deeply moving. A song about an old man sailing a boat which he built, and both of them confronting their mortality, helping each other survive, but marking the end of their life at sea.
There’s something deeply moral about the way it presents Saben’s care and attention for the boat, and the bond between them. I previously mentioned, that Gordon has written some great songs drawing on the mythology of the ocean and this is one of them.
“These Dry Stone Walls” — Gordon Bok (Dave Goulder)
In Cumberland they built them
On hills that surely must have killed them
Through broom and juniper and stunted ling
Two thousand feet over
With just a tarpaulin cover
They sat through wind and rain and waited for the spring
Written by Dave Goulder who is a dry stone wall builder, his version isn’t available2, but I think this is an interesting companion to the first song. It is also about building with patience and care but, in this case, the rocks and walls do not respond. They just exist, as people invest labor and meaning in them.
“The Fitted Shirt” — Spoon
One day it'll take and they'll start to make
Shirts that fit right
Till then I suppose I'll stick out dad's clothes
And that's alright
A change of style, this is the one rock song on the list, and another old favorite. This was the first song by Spoon that I heard, on a mix made by a friend, and I thought it was such a well-worked metaphor, with the father’s shirts as a representation for the ways in which the son is drawn to the traditions of the prior generations.
“The Randall Knife” — Guy Clark
My father had a Randall knife
My mother gave it to him
When he went off to World War II
To save us all from ruin
Now if you've ever held a Randall knife
You'll know my father well
And if a better blade was ever made
It was probably forged in hell
Guy Clark has written a number of songs about objects (from “Homegrown tomatoes” to “My Favorite Picture Of You”) but I selected this one to continue the themes of inheritance, in this case more complicated.
The knife initially represents a bond between his parents. Guy borrows the knife as a teenager, misuses it and breaks off the end of the blade. He and his father never talked about it, but after it was broken, the knife sat in a drawer for 20 years.
After his father dies (relatively young), Guy asks for the knife, “They asked me what I wanted / Not the law books, not the watch / I need the things he's haunted.” This is a symbol that allows Guy to focus on his sorrow for his father. As the song is constructed it suggests that, after his father’s death, Guy still feels guilt over breaking the knife but has accepted it, and that guilt is both a connection to his father.
“Always Keep An Edge On Your Knife” — Corb Lund
Always keep an edge on your knife, son, always keep an edge on your knife
Cuz a good sharp edge is a man's best hedge against the vague uncertainties of life
Yes, a good sharp edge is a man's best hedge against the uncertain vagaries of life
But I never could sharpen no knife, like the one who gave the advice
A jauntier song, Corb Lund recounts the various advice he’s received from his elders about the proper way to traditions for care and respect of objects (hats, knives, guns, horse, bit, or clothes).
It also poses an interesting question about the theme — does this count? It’s an easy fit thematically but, compared to any of the previous songs, there is no specific object that is the focus of the song (except, perhaps, the “old .22”). It still reflects Corb Lund’s attachment to tradition and feeling that, as a musician, he’s drifting away from that life.3 Is this song too abstract to fit the category of songs and objects?
A fun topic to mull over — there are a lot of different ways to go (car songs are an obvious category. Are songs about drinking also object songs?4 There is an enormous variety of songs in which an object represents care for another person5
There is, separately, a long tradition of broken token songs in which two people each keep half of an object (often a ring) to be able to recognize each other when they reunite.
You can hear a short sample which gives a sense of the style.
This shows up in other songs as well. For example in "Especially A Paint" he sings “Well, I was raised in the West around, enough to hum the tune / But I never knew the place like the old boys did, chinook to mountain-view” and “There's something about horses, especially a paint / Whenever I see horses, I see a path I didn't take”
Guy Clark, again, offers an example in “Hemmingway’s Whiskey”
I strongly considered including Malvina Reynold’s “If You Love Me” — a near-perfect song, but I decided more about the care for a person than the object.
Take a listen to Fred Eaglesmith’s The Old John Deere.
Thanks for the mention, Nick, and for this great take on the relationships between songs and objects. I like this way of thinking about the topic via the idea of care and inheritance. One of the songs that got me started on my project was Richard Dawson's 'Wooden Bag'. The verses tell the story of the bag and the objects it contains in quite a neutral manner. The refrains bring the emotion and hint at the relationship between the singer and the bag's original owner, though the you're never quite sure what that relationship was. There's a sense of care in remembering a life through objects and feeling the need to care for them as a way of remembering the person. One of the most emotional lines in the song is 'How I miss you, I can feel it in my molecules', which is a reminder that we're all vibrant matter, connected to each other and the object world through material and emotional connections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-9osMKSyb0
I love Guy Clark's songs and 'Randall Knife' is up there with my favourites, so thank you for writing about that. With the idea of care and inheritance, I was reminded of Vince Gill's ‘Nothin’ Like a Guy Clark Song’. It underlines the object-oriented nature of Clark’s songwriting, being a catalogue or list song made up of fragments of Clark lyrics and borrowing the guitar figure that Clark used for ‘Let Him Roll’ and ‘Randall Knife’ (and letting that musical figure become an evocative object in itself). That idea of artistic inheritance and caring for it is there, as you note, in Clark's songs--'Hemingway's Whiskey', 'Dublin Blues' (especially the line that puts Doc Watson on the pantheon with artworks from the distant past), 'Cold Dog Soup'--and Gill really brings that out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0XE9DKgQzk