DOLLY YOUR ENTHUSIASM (7)
By:
January 21, 2023
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of favorite Country singles from the Sixties (1964–1973). Series edited by Josh Glenn. BONUS: Check out the DOLLY YOUR ENTHUSIASM playlist on Spotify.
COMMANDER CODY AND HIS LOST PLANET AIRMEN | “BACK TO TENNESSEE” | 1971
There’s a 1970 Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen concert recording during which one can hear piano player, frontman, and song coauthor George Frayne (aka Commander Cody) announce “Back to Tennessee” as a “protest song.”
If you recall that from 1968–1972 alone, Cuban revolutionaries attempted 100 hijackings in the US, then the song protagonist’s refrain — “I’m gonna hijack one of those big jet planes / I’m goin’ back to Tennessee” — does sound like a threat of “direct action” in the name of some radical objective. But like the uncanny, neither-fish-nor-fowl phenomenon that was CC&HLPA, Frayne’s stage chatter here is best understood as a volatile admixture of redneck pathos and hippie put-on.
Why is our protagonist protesting? Because his old lady looks at him “cross-eyed”; she even cheats on him. Why is she fed up? Because he’s a slacker: “I did everything that I could do, but I got no ambition in life.” Fed up with toiling away (when he’s not “sniffin’ glue”) in Chicago and Detroit, this Nashville native has persuaded himself not only that life is simpler back home, but that a woman is waiting for him there. All of which is patently — cf. Ratso’s southern dreaming in 1969’s Midnight Cowboy, say, or “Jackson,” popularized in ’67 by Cash/Carter and also Sinatra/Hazlewood — nothing but a schlemiel’s fantasy.
Originally a University of Michigan art-student “happening” featuring a cast of dozens, including tap-dancing sisters, Pat the Hippie Strippie, and a moniker referencing a 1950s sci-fi serial — CC&HLPA’s blend of punk energy and country twang arrived on the scene a decade too soon. At the level of form, too, this song — an irreverent, virtuosic example of Western Swing Revival, which is to say: a mashup of rockabilly, honky-tonk, vintage R&B, and boogie-woogie; a proto-punk, marijuana-cured homage to the rowdy barroom country of Ernest Tubb and Ray Price — simultaneously demands that we take the protagonist’s tale of woe seriously while offering an ironic wink.
I, for one, sympathize with the schlemiel… and wish him luck with his hijacking.
DOLLY YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | David Cantwell on Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton’s WE FOUND IT | Lucy Sante on Johnny & June Carter Cash’s JACKSON | Mimi Lipson on George Jones’s WALK THROUGH THIS WORLD WITH ME | Steacy Easton on Olivia Newton-John’s LET ME BE THERE | Annie Zaleski on Tammy Wynette’s D-I-V-O-R-C-E | Carl Wilson on Tom T. Hall’s THAT’S HOW I GOT TO MEMPHIS | Josh Glenn on Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen’s BACK TO TENNESSEE | Elizabeth Nelson on Skeeter Davis’s I DIDN’T CRY TODAY | Carlo Rotella on Buck Owens’ TOGETHER AGAIN | Lynn Peril on Roger Miller’s THE MOON IS HIGH | Erik Davis on Kris Kristofferson’s SUNDAY MORNIN’ COMIN’ DOWN | Francesca Royster on Linda Martell’s BAD CASE OF THE BLUES | Amanda Martinez on Bobbie Gentry’s FANCY | Erin Osmon on John Prine’s PARADISE | Douglas Wolk on The Byrds’ DRUG STORE TRUCK DRIVIN’ MAN | David Warner on Willie Nelson’s WHISKEY RIVER | Will Groff on Tanya Tucker’s DELTA DAWN | Natalie Weiner on Dolly Parton’s IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS (WHEN TIMES WERE BAD) | Charlie Mitchell on Stonewall Jackson’s I WASHED MY HANDS IN MUDDY WATER | Nadine Hubbs on Dolly Parton’s COAT OF MANY COLORS | Jada Watson on Loretta Lynn’s DON’T COME HOME A DRINKIN’ (WITH LOVIN’ ON YOUR MIND) | Adam McGovern on Johnny Cash’s THE MAN IN BLACK | Stephen Thomas Erlewine on Dick Curless’s A TOMBSTONE EVERY MILE | Alan Scherstuhl on Waylon Jennings’s GOOD HEARTED WOMAN | Alex Brook Lynn on Bobby Bare’s THE WINNER. PLUS: Peter Doyle on Jerry Reed’s GUITAR MAN | Brian Berger on Charley Pride’s IS ANYBODY GOING TO SAN ANTONE.
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