This Is the Style of a Bastard Son

Album: John Wesley Harding, Here Comes the Groom, 1990

Best Track: "The Red Rose and the Briar"

Lasting Memory: As I noted a few months ago, Here Comes the Groom features the song I have sung to myself more often than any other over the past two decades. That song, "Nothing I'd Rather Do," is about how ready, willing, and able Mr. Harding is to see his girlfriend through the hardest times.

When I sing it, however, it is pure irony bordering on vituperation. With all apologies to Harding, the chorus of

There's nothing I'd rather do
Take you in and pull you through
Take you in and pull you through
There's nothing I'd rather do
There's nothing I'd rather do

just works when you have to convince yourself to finish your shift in the 140-degree Farenheit Styrofoam factory during the month of August or make the drive to your temp job at the paper goods plant during a driving ice storm in February. After all, there is nothing more personally empowering or satisfying than kneecapping a Pollyanna.

Call me a bastard if you must. Even if I am, I'd have company in the very person of singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding. The last song on Here Comes the Groom is the professional autobiography/statement of purpose "Bastard Son," which begins

Bob Dylan is my father, Joan Baez is my mother
And I'm their bastard son
Though my roots show through I'm just 22
I don't belong to anyone
When The Band was disbanded, I was disowned
I got a number you can ring me on but I ain't got no phone
Got a forwarding address, baby I ain't got no home
I got no direction home
That's the style of a bastard child
This is the song of a bastard son

While it seems a bit self-congratulatory, it is fairly accurate. And, of course, he did take his stage name from the Bob Dylan album.

I also feel justified in subverting the intent of "Nothing I'd Rather Do" because Harding does a fair bit of angry snarking himself on this album, as you'll hear by clicking here and working through samples of all the songs. The title track describes a march to the gallows of a marriage made well south of heaven and in the neighborhood of the pocketbook. In "The Devil in Me," Harding admits to being JFK's assassin, Jesus' executioner, and, oh yeah, the guy who "made you cry/ Could of made you laugh instead."

Harding isn't really evil, though. He is just easily jaded. As everyone knows, the romantic's disappointment easily turns to anger, and anger is the easiest thing to take out on other.

Harding calls his expressions of this emotional rollercoaster"gangsta folk," and he gives full voice to his tendency toward jadedness in "Same Thing Twice." Since the song is a fair approximation of one of the major reasons why I didn't pursue stand-up more diligently, I'll give the full lyrics:

He's done it all a million times
The gags, the repartee, the little crimes
Every audience is special and that goes for you
He looks into your eyes again
He never does it but he tries again
That old boy lost look could bruise you black and blue
Everybody's looking for a single row so they can be alone
Cos every time the lights go up, they'd rather be at home
I looked through all the wanted ads with a fine toothed comb
And all I came up with was another evening
Doing the same thing twice
That's what I was doing

All the drinks that he's been sinking
Never ask him what he's thinking
Every audience is unique and that goes for you
Dead or alive you're coming with me
Because everything's my cup of tea
That's why I've got a gold suit and some green Italian shoes
Everybody says they had, but we all know they didn't
It's impossible to be a little bit pregnant
Give me the whole fruit cos I'm getting just a segment
And all I end up with is another evening
Doing the same thing twice

Well it hurts so bad to get this stoned
By ugly looking bureaucrats with ears like headphones
Reading The Sun, Sunday Sport, S.Ideal Home, Woman's Own
Looks like you're on your own

Bring me on the magic sponge
My dying gasp, my final lunge
It's all over now bar the dance
Do it now but don't get caught
I've been having third thoughts (third thoughts)
They can be so clever, only when the script demands
You cluttered up the sky now so you can't follow any star
Someone's sitting next to you in an empty cinema
No-one wants to end up face down in a reservoir
And I don't wanna end up with another evening
Saying the same thing twice

Harding never completely gives into his dark side, though. "The Red Rose and the Briar" revives and redeems the romantic. It is one of those songs I always listen to twice back-to-back. Here's why

Midweek and we reached Scarlet Town
I was almost dying of thirst
We parked the car in some old schoolyard
The windscreen caked in dirt
There was no water in the engine left
No tread upon the tyres
The electrics were broke cos you went mad
You ripped out all the wires
Across the road, a small cafe
In this state of disrepair
You went for papers and a shave
So I saved you a chair
I knew it wasn't the journey's end
And that your dream was incomplete
But I just could not stand anymore
I was dead upon my feet
I was dead upon my feet

There's nothing there in the market square
But the ghost of the Scarlet Town Crier
I was dead upon my feet
I sing the red rose and the briar
I sing the red rose and the briar

The waitress told me her life story
She'd always meant to up and go
She wiped a cup on her red pinafore
As we waited for you to show
And I told her just a little of you
But left the picture incomplete
You still weren't there to paint it in person
So I skipped out on the street
I skipped out on the street
The newsagent grinned, he said
Yes you'd been in
You bought a local paper and some shades
The washroom attendant said that you'd freshened up
That you'd left but you hadn't paid
And I couldn't figure out where you were
So I went back just to look near the car
There was nothing there where it should have been
Just oil on dirt and tar
Just oil on dirt and tar

There's nothing there in the market square
But the ghost of the Scarlet Town Crier
And there was nothing there where it should have been
I sing the red rose and the briar
I sing the red rose and the briar

I saw it parked way down the street
In a garage off on the right
And a man said 'Get your hands off son'
I just traded that wreck for a motorbike
There was nothing left of mine inside
Not even the broken radio
And I couldn't figure out where that left me
So I went back to look for Rose
The Cafe Rouge was a lunchtime rush
Of regulars yelling for food
The service in there left a lot to be desired
And all the regulars were getting rude
I saw an apron thrown over a chair
A note said 'Hey John, we're gone, we're gone'
And I just smiled cos I loved you both
So I put the apron on
I put the apron on

There's nothing there in the market square
But the ghost of the Scarlet Town Crier
And I just put the apron on
I sing the red rose and the briar
I sing the red rose and the briar

Up Next: John Wesley Harding, The Name Above the Title, 1991