Parallels between Anacreon 357 (Ancient Text) and (Contemporary Song) by Jim White
ltc-admin, 2015-03-13 12:47
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Both texts involve prayers to god (Eros in the ancient source). The Jim White song is interesting because the speaker gives God an ultimatum. Anacreon: O lord, with whom Eros the subduer and the dark-eyed nymphs and glistening Aphrodite join in play, you who roam the high crests of the mountains, I kneel and beg you, come to me kindly, hear my prayer, and may it please you: Give wise counsel to Kleoboulos, get him, Dionysus, to accept my love.
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I say “God, if you ain’t smiling on me, then you ain’t no friend of mine.” It’s late at night and this motel room’s
drunk, I been listening to the lonesome wind crying. My best friend once said, “Jim, what you cling to, that’s the thing
that you had best forget. For ain’t no rose bed ever gonna bloom in an untended field of regrets.” Guess I been busy
killing time counting bullet holes in state line signs. I led a life of lonely drifting trying to rise above the buzzards
in my mind. You get dizzy chasing ’round the tail of what you need to leave behind. Oh sweet Jesus, won’t you help me?
‘Cause all I’m trying to do is plant them seeds of love with that girl from Brownsville, Texas. Midnight radio, a crackly
white gospel station kicking out the sounds of some half-assed revival. Me, I never much cared for the feelings you get
quoting scriptures from out of the Bible. For as the crow flies I know only one cure for a permanent tear in your eye. You
gotta crank like hell that rope on old sorrow’s well ’til the day that the bucket comes up dry.
[CHORUS]
Now dreams are just
prayers without the put on airs… and though my history of dreams is a scandal of back-assward schemes and romantic
disasters where Lord, you dealt me more cards than I could handle. Still from the lips of this half-hearted sinner comes
the pledge of a half-baked saint. ‘Cause Lord I might finally be willing to become the religious fool you always wanted me
to be… if in return we could just tell that girl I’m the man you and me both know that I ain’t.
[CHORUS]
Listen to the song:
That Girl from Brownsville Texas