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The
Earth Rolls On: Try & Try Again
Billy Joe’s next album,
Freedom’s Child contained a story of
their family’s history, “Day by Day”:
He
was twenty and one years the day they were married
She was a young girl just turned seventeen
Her belly was swelled with the child that she carried
The unwelcome start of a God-given dream
…
There’s hope for the family that God holds together
If they hang on ‘til everything turns out all right…
The
young girl went home to her heavenly Father
While the husband and son sang the mother goodbye
There’s many a moonbeam got lost in the forest
And many a forest got burnt to the ground
The son went with Jesus to be with his mother
The father just fell to his knees on the ground
Day by day his heart kept on breaking
And aching to fly to his home in the sky
But now he’s arisen from the flames of the forest
With songs from the family that never will die
Needing to keep busy, he went back on the road, but in August of
2001 while on stage at Texas’s oldest dance hall, Billy Joe suffered
a heart attack. He thought to himself, “Thank you Jesus, for letting
me die on the stage of this honkytonk. It’s where I belong. I’m
going to join Brenda and Eddy”. He didn’t. They kept playing for
three more hours.
His
doctor found he had 10% blood flow to his heart, and scheduled a
quadruple bypass as soon as he could.
Since then, Billy Joe continues to play. “I don’t believe I’ll ever
leave [the road]”. Although he’s been writing superb songs for over
30 years, broader recognition is just now coming to him. No doubt he
gets more attention since his songs – always rooted in his life –
now reflect the deep pain and loss that has followed him.
However, more than that, his songs have always reflected the peaks,
the depths, and the complexities of human emotions and experiences,
and they have always been rooted in truth. So, it is inevitable that
his music will continue to do so, but with even deeper resonance.
His
poetry has always been superb; his strength and conviction an
inspiration.
 Carl Wilson, in a 2002 column about Shaver & his life in the
Globe & Mail wrote "So
when he gently, humbly mentioned on stage that he owed it all to
Jesus -- who he's said came to him when he was drugging, drinking
and cheating, and pulled him back from the lip of a cliff where he
was about to jump -- all I could think was, 'Whatever gets that man
through the day is fine by me'“.
A few days after Wilson’s column, I saw Billy Joe play at Hugh's
Room, and sure enough, when he leaned back, threw out his arms and
yelled the line "Ain’t no reason to deny it,
I owe it all to Jesus Christ",
it more than rang true.
True words are what Billy Joe Shaver is all about. Who else could
write a song titled after the old cliché, “Try and try again”, and
make those words chillingly convincing?
Well I went up on the mountain
And I looked down on my life
I had squandered all my money
Lost my son and wife
My
heart was filled with sorrow
And I almost took my life
But I found the strength inside me
To give life one more try
If at first you don’t succeed, just try and try again
If all you do is lose,
you better find a way to win!
(The last line is growled, almost as an order).
And more music
This story just might lead people who aren’t familiar with his music
to think it’s mostly made up of songs of tragedy, pain and bad
living. In fact, his songs cover as wide a range as might be
expected from a wide-ranging life.
To take one example, his 2002 album,
Freedom’s Child which
included the heartbreaking “Day by Day” quoted previously, also
includes among the other songs:
- The title song, which echoes his “Christian Soldier” from 30
years earlier regarding the futility and loss of war (“Freedom’s
child was laid to rest singing freedom’s song”)
- “That’s Why the Man in Black Sings the Blues”, a tribute to
Johnny Cash and his passionate commitment against any exploitation
of the weak
- “Good ol’ USA", a re-recording of an older Shaver song, a
jaunty homage to the country he loves (“We’ve got faith in the
Lord, we’ve got Chevrolets and Fords”)
-
A classic drinking song, “Drinkin’ Back”, about a time when
Brenda divorced him
- "We”, a bittersweet song about his relationship with Brenda.
(His album notes introduce it saying, “I’m sure that she would have
been better off if she wouldn’t have met me, but this is a good look
at what happened to us”.
We were so innocent and free
You know we tried our best to be
We had all of everything
Until I gave my love to you
Until you gave your love to me
-
The country-living “Wild Cow Gravy” about his mother’s family
-
A lesson to never call a Texan “dude” (“Déja Blues”)
-
It ends with the hidden track, “Necessary Evil” by his son.
Eddy died two days before he was to begin recording his own
album. This song was one Billy Joe taped using a home tape
recorder in his garage, about two weeks before Eddy died.
It’s a blistering slide guitar blues. If the song isn’t
addressed to the demon that would soon take his life, it
certainly feels like that
Well I knew that
when we started,
it was wrong but Lord it felt so right.
…
You're a
necessary evil,
That's what you are to me.
You're a necessary evil,
That's what you are to me.
You're the first thing that I gotta have and the last thing that I
really need
That song is also on a later album entitled
Billy and the Kid
made up of a mix of Billy Joe and Eddy songs, performed by each –
and both – of them. A number of the songs had been destined to be on
Eddy’s album. The album opens with the song “Fame”, a poignant
observation by Billy Joe about his new-found “fame”, coming so late
in life, and not until after he’s lost the ones he loved the most.
Fame, you bright illusive thing
Somehow you found your way
Into my life today
I never changed
I still remain the same
My few and precious friends
Still love me anyway
I look up in the stars
And wonder where you are
I owe it all to you
Your prayers have all come true
Oh fame
God bless you Eddy
Love you Brenda
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