John Hartford Looks at Life
Song Titles
Side 1
Liner Notes
Between the Pumpkins and Tomatoes...
After my first brief meeting with John Hartford, I said to myself, "They were right!" Tompall, Chuck and Jim Glaser had so often spoken of him.
Nobody wrote, sang or played like him. If I compared him to any artist (which would really be a mistake), I'd say his talent is unique, his songs are poetry -- and he is not confused or frustrated.
He is great, but doesn't know it. His music and lyrics are unlike any I've heard. He is himself and will not be told how to write or sing, because he has only his own world.
He can't, rather, won't change to become something he isn't. We all need to eat, but John Hartford is ready for the worst, as long as his music and lyrics -- his whole philosophy -- can be part of him.
Read his story; it will certainly be written many times in the future.
I give you a peek at the inside track of John. He drove out with Chuck Glaser to see me, put his banjo and tapes of these songs in a cool place, then helped me string out the hose to water a pumpkin vine.
It wasn't long before I knew he was "a good man to ride the river with." Inside, we played these songs while I was washing up. To save any embarassment I commented very little on his writing, singing, playing. Then, we talked philosophy as well as music.
His choice comment that day was: "I think a man should sing or talk as honest as is the air he breathes."
Before he left, I asked him to string out the hose to the tomato patch.
So these songs are the ones I heard between the pumpkins and tomatoes.
Johnny Cash
Behind a Five-String Banjo...
I reckon I used to spend a lot of time sitting around the house with my elbows on the kitchen table wondering how I could trap this counterfeit demon they call "commercial" music. My eyeballs were blinking on and off like neon lights, and it was even getting hard to remember my own name. Then, one morning before breakfast, I realized that what you DON'T do is just as important as what you DO do... so I put on my tee shirt, grabbed my antique and made a hasty exit (in the traditional cloud of dust), leaving the demon standing in the middle of the floor scratching his head. As I went down the road I hollered back over my shoulder, "It's a free country, demon! . . . and I reckon I'll just sing for myself for a while" . . . and the next thing I knew I was being shown to a microphone and asked to do some of my most personal, ingrown songs. I reckon at one time or another I have probably played the part of every one of the abstract villians in these songs, or word movies as I sometimes call them.
Eve of My Multiplication is how I felt the night before my first son was born, and as I chewed my fingernails I wondered what kind of incredible family tree I might have planted in the backyard of my own inexperience. Jack's in the Sack was written one night after drinking too many Dr. Peppers and watching too much test pattern on TV. It's written in an Arkansas dialect of middle Canadian and the tune is really the Osage national anthem played backward in a major key, and the hero, Jack, whose real name is Chuck, is the most intellectual flagpole sitter I know. When the Sky Began to Fall is the horrible situation when all the drugstore war heroes, unemployed talent scouts, and habitual name-droppers usually split for a friendlier climate. I Shoulda Wore My Birthday Suit is a pretty simple little symphony. . . seeing as how it's hard to rob a man who ain't got nothing to start with. Today and Untangle Your Mind are "don't sweat it" songs and I like to sing them to myself because they remind me that there's nothing in the world worth the soul-corroding price of worry. Corn Cob Blues is about a skinny boy with elopement on his mind who gets involved in a highly commercial wedding venture complete with song and dance routine, stale jokes and a lot of loud promotion. Front Porch, The Tall Tall Grass and Minus the Woman are love songs, and A Man Smoking a Cigar (believe it or not) is a song about a man . . . smoking a cigar.
I found out a while back that it's pretty hard to be yourself in this space-age world we live in, when all around you is glamor and by comparison you feel pretty dull and unromantic . . . Like Unto a Mockingbird is kinda close to the house, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions about it.
These songs were written about some of the things that have passed before my eyes, seeped into my ears, and now have been whispered and hollered from behind a five-string banjo for the benefit of the dynagroove sound in this album . . . and may the demon have mercy . . . I reckon.
Nashville, Tennessee, July 1966
LSP-3687
Released: 1967
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