God's Gotta Laugh Sometimes, Too

Album: Guadalcanal Diary, Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man, 1985

Best Track: "Trail of Tears"

Lasting Memory: About two hours into the drive up to Virginia Tech for the beginning of my first semester of college, the batteries in my Walkman died. I had to take my Walkman and listen to tapes during the drive because there was zero chance that the U-Haul would feature anything as luxurious as an in-dash cassette-stereo. Also, how else was I supposed to spend my final six hours with my father before leaving home for (what didn't quite turn out to be) ever? Actually talking to him?

The Walkman conked out some way into the title track of Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man. The workings of the universe are of en more scrutable than we like to pretend. Good talk that day, Dad.

How to describe the band Guadalcanal Diary? Country- and gospel-tinged, but also wise-assed. I'd like to sit down for a beer with head GD'er, Murray Attaway, just to have the opportunity to find out what goes through the mind of a man who who is equally adept at writing and recording Christ-haunted songs like "Trail of Tears" and "Why Do the Heathens Rage?" as well as the sub-frat-boy joke "Watusi Rodeo."

I'll probably never get that chance, but I'm glad he was able to share his unique worldview with the, um, world.

The guy who wrote

The Sun hangs low in the Western sky
I bow my head and remember now
Someone's lips pressed close to mine
Her cool hand upon my brow

Hell burns hot for a killer 's heart
A shallow grave in an unmarked plot
Crack of gunfire in the dark
Hand in hand we'll walk at daybreak

One wore black (x3)

The trail of tears is winding on
Many pass along the road
Dusty soldiers march along
As they file one by one

One wore black (x3)

Trail of tears is winding on
Frightened soldier run no more
Arm and arm with lovers gone
No one passes on the road

Two girls wait at the railroad track
For their soldiers to come back
Knowing this will be their last
One wore blue and one wore black
One wore black . . .

just doesn't seem like the same guy who wrote

Come along with me to the Congo land
Got a zebra by the tail and a python in my hand
Once my home was a Texas plain
But now I swing a lasso on an alien terrain

Hottentons and pygmies know where to go
Everybody's heading for the Watusi Rodeo

Cowboys are putting up a big fence around
A sacred elephant burial ground
Native women stomping up a flurry in the mud
Villagers are looking for some cowboy blood (Blood!)

I guess they didn't like them hats we made 'em wear
They don't look right on the native hair
Don't they don't it's all for show
All for showing at the Watusi Rodeo

Monkeys in the trees just thumbing their nose
At the bull-riders riding on rhinos
Warriors standing with spears in the hands
Wondering what's next from a crazy white man

Natives are restless under these Stetsons
What are these cowboys doing in the Congo
Look like cows but they're water buffaloes
Ropin' and a riding in the Watusi Rodeo

Oh they look like cows but they're water buffaloes
Everybody's heading for the Watusi Rodeo

It's entirely possible that I'm not giving Attaway's bandmates -- Rhett Crowe, Joe Poe, and Jeff Walls -- enough credit, but Attaway was the guy in charge. It's also very likely that I'm intentionally ignoring some not very subtle anticolonial or anti-cultural hegemony message in "Watusi Rodeo," but that is my prerogative as a listener.

I'd settle for a Hardee's iced tea with Attaway to get this all straight if the beer option is truly off the table.

Up Next: Guadalcanal Diary, 2 x 4, 1987