Monday, July 23, 2018

‘If you want good friends, it gonna cost you’

     
American roots music spans a galaxy of styles and traditions, regions and generations. I practically used to live on the music of contemporary singer-songwriters from Texas, Louisiana, and environs. Guy Clark, Robert Earl Keen, Lucinda Williams, Joe Ely, Townes Van Zandt, and many more. I had the good fortune to see them perform when they came to New York. You’d pay something like $12 to sit at their feet in the Bottom Line back in the 1980s and ’90s. I would leave class, or the library, or my desk at the student newspaper, and would just cross the street and fold into my usual seat. One night in December 1990, I saw Clark, Keen, and Van Zandt sharing the stage. I’ve been revisiting this music lately. Got a lot of CDs.

Van Zandt’s historic double album Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas captures a night in 1973, pretty early in his career. It was released on New York City-based Tomato Records in 1977.

I had totally forgotten this song. “Fraternity Blues” is about the college fraternity game, of which I never was part. Musically, this is in the tradition of Talking Blues. Think Woody Guthrie and those first Bob Dylan records, for example.





Fraternity Blues
Townes Van Zandt

I decided to improve my social station
I joined a fraternity organization
Tucked in my shirt
Signed on the line
Right away they set about to improve my mind
The car I drove
The books I read
The food I ate
The booze I drank
The girls I took out
My breath

Said “kid, we don’t much like the way you walk
And you gonna have to change the way you talk”
They said “your dress is kind of slouchy
And your attitude is mighty grouchy”
Said “you got to learn to bubble”
“You got to bubble with enthusiasm” I started to bubble
“Most important thing you can’t forget
Is learning the entire Greek alphabet”
I never did really understand
That that’s gonna make me anymore a man
But I learned it
I can whip through that son-of-a-beta backwards in five seconds
Then they hit me with some pretty bad news
Concerning the payment of monthly dues

I never did know where that money went
I never was sure it was well spent
But I paid it
I’m no trouble-causer and besides I figured that’s life
If you want good friends it gonna cost you

Well, finally got to be party time
I got a great big old jug of wine
I went back to the house in about an hour
when the boys were drinking whiskey sours
brandy alexanders
frozen daiquiris
Reciting the Greek alphabet to one another

I could see I was gonna have to do my very best
To get myself out of that fraternity mess
I stood right there outside the door
And I chugged that wine like never before
Walked inside and bubbled
All over a couple of their dates

So now everything’s back to normal again
But there is still lots of room for improvement my friend
’Cause that fraternity stuff is too much for me
Next time I’m gonna join a sorority
Really get me something to bubble about
     

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