The First Word in Memory
Posted in Country Music on Jul 20th, 2009 No Comments »
Ever since I bought Hank Locklin’s ‘Please Help Me I’m Falling’ almost fifty years ago I’ve been a fan of Country music. You outgrow the pop music you adored when you were a teenager, when your puppy love phase is over. Country music grows up with you - it deals with your adult joys and despairs - with grown up love, loss, betrayal, disenchantment, where love is hard, where passion, sex and disappointment are inextricably intermingled.
This song is from 1984, by Janie Fricke. New love has claimed him. It may be sweeter but cannot be truer. She can’t let the memory go.
‘Her lips will be my lips when she’s kissing you. You’ll be looking at her but it’s my face you’ll see.’
Surreal - and haunting, as if sung by a ghost that can’t quit the earth which it has forsaken.
The arrangement is way over the top - but Fricke’s vocal is intimate and sincere. There is no reproach; there is no bitterness - just intense regret, disbelief and defiance.
