It's doubtful that the Romans had anything like country music, but if they had, they'd likely have listened to something very like Jake Owen's Janus-like meditation on looking back, and learning not to do that sort of thing again.
Owen's is a good story for New Year's Day. He wasn't a musician, but rather an athlete. A water skiing accident ended that dream, and he taught himself to play guitar while he was recovering. One night, while watching Sumdood perform at a bar, he asked the owner if he could try some time. He was good enough to get asked back, and then became a regular, and then started writing his own music. The next stop was Nashville.
You never know where you'll go next. What you do know is where you've been. That's a good meditation for the start of a New Year.
Startin' With Me (Songwriters: Kendall Marvel, Jimmy Ritchey, Jake Owen)
I had a one night stand with my best friends baby sister
And to this day he still wont speak to me
I pawned my grandpa’s old guitar in collage
For a case of beer and a tank of gasoline
I took a swing at my old man one Christmas
I never dreamed that it would be his last
I wish mom had rung my neck
When she caught me with those cigarettes
Which reminds me, I’m down to my last pack
If I had a dime
For half the things I did
That didn’t make no sense at all
I’d be living a little higher on the hog
If only I’d of known
That later on down the road
I’d look back and not like what I see
I’d of changed a lot of things
Startin’ with me
I called my brother everything I could think of
The night he wouldn’t bail me out of jail
I lost a job most folks ‘round here would die for
By laying out all night and raising hell
And I let a woman that I love slip through my fingers
Chalk another dumb move up to my foolish pride
I wasn't there standin’ by the bed
When the preacher bowed his head
With the family, the day my grandma die
If I had a dime
For half the things I did
That didn’t make no sense at all
I’d be living a little higher on the hog
If only I’d of known
That later on down the road
I’d look back and not like what I see
I’d of changed a lot of things
Startin’ with me
If only I’d of known
That later on down the road
I’d look back and not like what I see
Whoa, I’d of changed a lot of things
Startin’ with me
Startin’ with me
That's a great song; in fact, I bought that cd after I heard it, and the rest of it is pretty good. I also liked "Ghosts," "Places To Run" and "The Bottle And Me."
ReplyDeleteJanus is the god of thresholds (usually meaning the doorway to a house) and as you correctly point out looks into the house and out of the house simultaneously. Hence January - looking both forward and back. Less well known, Janus can be associated with changes (e.g. moving house?) and marks a break with the old and the start of the new.
ReplyDeleteThough you have to be careful discussing Roman Gods as they frequently have "local" versions which the Romans, after invading a country, said to themselves "Oh! That local God/ess is the equivalent of our God Such and Such". For example, the Roman Minerva is associated with Athenia (Greek) and Bridget/Sulis (Celtic).
Slippery little blighters, Roman Gods!