The Singer or the Song? (West Texas Highway)

Most of my teaching these days is pretty low-level stuff: of the five undergraduate courses I teach, only two have explicitly metalinguistic content. The subject matter of the other three is entirely up to me, provided that I teach English reading, writing and something interesting (respectively). (The word respectively was in fact one of the topics that came up in yesterday's Reading class—which shows how hard it is to escape from linguistic concerns). As for the 'something interesting' class (aka Kisoen-shu 'Introductory Seminar'), one of the chosen topics for this year is Singer-Songwriters, in which I introduce my students to (to me) interesting popular music dating from the time that most of their parents—sometimes grandparents—were children themselves. So far we've looked at songs by Harry Chapin, Ralph McTell, Don McLean, Joni Mitchell. I've had a great time, though probably they would rather listen to J-pop or watch paint dry. Too bad, sho ga nai,  (しょうがない^?): it's my class, and it could be worse...

Anyway, today the chosen song was West Texas Highway, as performed by Lyle Lovett. Ironically, the song was not composed by him, and so fits badly into the slot. It appears on the album Step Inside This House, which is a collection of Lovett's favourite songs by other songwriters, and which I had believed for years—until today—had converted me to American country music. Two hours ago, I realized that the album had only converted me to Lyle Lovett. For here's the point of this post: It's Lovett who transforms this song from a fairly banal ditty about picking up a tramp on a long country road into a near elegaic reflection on the loss of freedom that comes with material possession:

...But I'm still wishing
To this very day
That he had my clothes
And my big Chevrolet
And it was me going to Haskell
With a woman down in Abilene

This is not in and of itself promising material, as this rendition proves. But Lovett is an alchemist. I don't know how he does it, really. And the only way to decide for yourself is to buy the song, 'cos it's not on YouTube (which is where I found the crummy version). But it will be worth every penny, cent, yen. Better yet, buy the whole album. Here's the link

PS. Here's a(n o) possum, 'case you didn't know how they grin (Possums are an entirely different antipodean beastie; this opussum comes from a further North, I'm told Texan possums are browner)

'Grinning like a possum/A mighty happy rascal'