DOLLY YOUR ENTHUSIASM (2)
By:
January 5, 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.
JOHNNY CASH & JUNE CARTER CASH | “JACKSON” | 1967
“Jackson” came out in 1967, a year (like 1965 and 1966) in which I liked pretty much everything on the hit parade. It may have been the first time I was aware that what I was listening to was country music. It was certainly the first time I felt that I was listening to an adult conversation in song. Johnny and June had a repartee going, and it had a beat. I didn’t quite understand what was going on, though. They got married in a fever, and then he’s going down to Jackson to shake his thing?
The song was written by Billy Edd Wheeler, a prolific Nashville songwriter also responsible for “High Flying Bird,” among other things. But it was edited by Jerry Lieber, half of the Lieber-Stoller duo whose fingerprints are all over the pop music of the 1950s and ’60s and whose songs — “Yakety Yak,” “Poison Ivy,” “Love Potion No.9,” and on and on — have a technicolor immediacy and an abundance of narrative that makes them seem like sonic movies. The premise here, essentially, is Lieber and Stoller’s “Kansas City,” but with the wife’s viewpoint also accounted for.
They got married in a fever, but now the flames have died down. He’s raring to get crazy, and intends to do so among the fleshpots of Jackson, Tennessee. He imagines the impact his mere appearance will have upon the female population, and she laughs at him, tells him to get lost. She predicts they’ll drag him down the street like a scalded hound. But where’s she going to be? Why, Jackson, of course, behind a Japan “Jay-pan” fan. The verbal hook stops the clock and also delivers the scene: She will be interrupting his slipshod attempted priapism from behind a fan, like Marlene Dietrich in The Devil Is a Woman. Their passion will be rekindled by the bright lights of Jackson, and nix to the old cottage home.
June’s and Johnny’s voices mesh like gears when they harmonize; separately his dark brown monotone is surrounded by her wall of sound, from low growl to clarion call. The song bobs along in Johnny’s patented dum-dadadum-dadadum-dadadum canter while June clips lines and drops bombs. Whenever the word “Jackson” appears its hard consonants snap like twigs; it might as well be “Babylon.” And all the while they’re laughing, roaring together on the choruses. They fade themselves out by dropping their voices, since they can’t seem to quit the song.
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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