The farewell tour for Glen Campbell, and for you and me
The other day I got in a fight with my wife.
Not a serious fight like you might see in an academy award nominated drama starring Meryl Street. More like a fight you might see on a Tim Allen sitcom complete with laugh track.
The fight arose when I played Glen Campbell’s immortal song “Galveston” and my wife quipped indignantly that it was “country” music.
Are you kiddin’ me?!
“Glen Campbell is not country!” I replied hotly. I don’t listen to country music. Never have. Well okay, a few Garth Brooks songs and Dan Seals’ “Bop”, but that’s it, I assure you. ”Glen Campbell is in a class by himself” I added. (Insert inane laugh track here)
My wife rolled her eyes, shook her head, and walked off set. (More laughter).
But why was I so testy? Who cares if I add Glen Campbell to my very short list of “country singers”?
To be honest, I suspect I’ve been a little sensitive about Glen Campbell since the summer. That’s when I first learned that at 75 he had announced a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease and had embarked on his last tour ever. And that whole picture of a perennial entertainer who had recorded more than seventy albums signing off just struck me as terribly sad, like playing Jackson Browne’s “The Load-Out” one last time. Granted Campbell was never part of my life soundtrack in the way that Steve Miller or the Eagles have been. But “Rhinestone Cowboy”, “By the time I get to Phoenix” and the above-mentioned “Galveston” have secured their place within my top 500. Not even Coldplay can boast that honor. And now I had discovered that Mr. Campbell was on his final tour.
Fair enough, you think. I’m a sentimentalist. But really, melanchology for months? Every career, every life has to come to an end.
Now that you say it, that may be it. Every career, evey life comes to an end. The melancholy wasn’t simply that it was Glen Campbell’s last tour. It was also the reminder that someday it would be my last tour.
No laugh track please.
Just fade to black and let the credits roll…
Tags: Glen Campbell, mortality
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Jag Levak says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 8:24am
“Glen Campbell is not country!”
He had some pieces that were country influenced, but so did Elvis and the Beatles.
I’d say he was more a balladeer. If you line up “Wichita Lineman”, Gordon Lightfoot’s “Carefree Highway”, Arlo Guthrie’s “City of New Orleans”, Bob Dylan’s “Lay Lady Lay”, and Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”, I think even your wife would have to admit Campbell fits into that mix seamlessly.
“Every career, every life has to come to an end.”
Eh, that’s just the doubt talking. If you go back to thinking of death as merely a brief dirt nap, that oughta fix you up.
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:07pm
“See honey? He’s actually a balladeer!” (But what about Neil Diamond? “I am, I said” is immortal!)
As for “brief dirt nap”, it’s good for a laugh, but desperately uncharitable as a characterization for the way any Christian thinks about death (at least any Christian I’ve ever met).
clamat says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:29pm
This is really interesting. How does the average Christian think about death? I mean, death itself. If one of the main points of accepting Christ, being saved, etc., is to gain eternal life, can there be, practically speaking, any such thing as death to a Christian? If one is saved, at death wouldn’t one (or one’s soul) immediately be transported to Heaven? For a Christian, isn’t death truly less than an instant?
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:37pm
I’m less interested in how the average Christian thinks about death than in how they ought to think about it. And in my view they ought to view it as the point at which the soul departs from the body. Given the natural orientation of the soul to embodiment this is a painful and difficult process. But it has as the promise a future resurrection of the body at which point the soul will be reunited with the body.
Mike Gantt says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 7:10pm
Not speaking for Christians, but simply as one who believes Jesus Christ and the Bible, He has transformed death for every human being so that it no longer leads to oblivion (bibically, that would be Sheol/Hades below), but to an unbounded life (biblically, that would be in heaven above). In other words, our lives on earth are analogous to the limited time we spent in our mothers’ wombs, and our time in heaven is analogous to the far greater time we spent on earth outside our mothers’ wombs. As the womb is shrouded in darkness, so our lives in this world are shrouded in darkness. The destination of death has always been unseen from this side of death. The story of the Bible is that the destination was dramatically and irrevocably changed through Jesus Christ – from all descending to all ascending.
Not all people who read the Bible see this, but in due time more and more people will come to see that it’s so. As they do, they will come to appreciate in a greater way the importance of life here on earth and the value of investing every possible moment in the pursuit of moral excellence.
Jag Levak says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:35pm
“what about Neil Diamond? “I am, I said” is immortal!”
I didn’t mean to suggest that was a comprehensive list of all the balladeers.
(I think “Solitary Man” would slot in nicely behind Roger Whitaker’s “New World in the Morning”)
“As for “brief dirt nap”, it’s good for a laugh, but desperately uncharitable as a characterization for the way any Christian thinks about death (at least any Christian I’ve ever met).”
Really? I’m assuming you think you will be conscious in your next corporeal body. Do you think you will have consciousness of the interim while you have no body, or will it be lights-out followed immediately by lights-on from your perspective? What is the basis for your feeling of melancholy if not a sense of the ultimate finality of something you value? What is the good thing you think will be permanently lost and missing from the next life?
If you are merely whining that I’m being flip and irreverent, and not showing your belief system the sort of deference you think it deserves, I doubt anyone will be much impressed by that. But if you were trying to let your readers know that my representation included a fundamental inaccuracy, it might have been more effective to actually mention what that inaccuracy was. Because I think I pretty fairly captured what I was taught and believed back when I was a Christian.
The Atheist Missionary says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 11:54am
I contend that existential despair like that described in this post begat Zaraostrianism, Christianity and the innumerable other religions that mankind has dreamed up to cheat death.
Getting old sucks. It’s comforting to think that our lifetimes achievements, good deeds and children will survive us. However, all of this will fade within a century if we’re not famous and a few millenia if we are. In fact, the vast majority of people are unable to even name all of our own great-grandparents and definitely not all their great-great grandparents.
Curiously, these thoughts do not lead me to a nihilistic depression. I have a busy day ahead of me servicing clients who need my help and pay me handsomely to do so. The snow is lightly falling here and my kids are excited about the ski season starting (I envy Randal’s proximity to the Marmot Basin in Jasper). The cat is fed and the schnoodle is licking her privates. My column on the necessity of teaching comparative religion to public school students will be published in our local paper tomorrow. The hot tub and a Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church) sermon await me.
Life is meaningless and exactly what you make of it. Rhinestone Cowboy will always be one of my favorites …..
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:08pm
You are a poet TAM. Except for the whole Mark Driscoll sermon in the hot tub thing. That’s just weird.
The Atheist Missionary says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 1:23pm
I meant to type Zaroastrianism.
Mike Gantt says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 2:54pm
Appreciate the post, and even the oblique approach to the ultimate subject (whether that was premeditated or serendipitous).
Perhaps we who long to see Christ universally adored should speak and write this way more often because death is that one subject most common to humanity, most destructive to humanity, and most lacking a solution (at least in the minds of those who do not revere Christ).
Even aggressive atheists like Christopher Hitchens admit that they 1) do not like death, and 2) have no solution for it.
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:10pm
I think that evangelicals are often much too concerned about providing “the answer” in a way that shatters dramatic, existential tension and ultimately undermines the seriousness of their position. Sometimes it is better to end with a fade to black so that people can ultimately see the light.
Mike Gantt says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:16pm
Assuming you are actually suggesting a strategy for bearing witness to Christ and His vanquishment of death in a more effective way than is typically practiced, please elaborate.
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:27pm
Think of the film “Inception”. If you can lead another person to come to their own conclusion that “This is all there is” is not a satisfying way to view reality, that is much more powerful than telling them “This is not all there is”. That’s why “Christian films” are typically so horrible: they are straightforward evangelistic tracts. What a film like “Gran Torino” or “Thirteen Conversations About One Thing” gives up in terms of moralistic clarity it gains back ten-fold in terms of communicative power.
(Personally, I think the underlying problem for Christians is a weak pneumatology. We’d prefer to do all the work ourselves rather than provide the Spirit with effective tools to work in people’s lives.)
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:29pm
As a footnote: the church in China finally began to take off when all the foreign missionaries were booted out in 1953-4. We might think about cultural works (essays, films, music) by Christians in similar terms.
Mike Gantt says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:38pm
I have no argument with anything you are saying, and, of course, we can see a pattern for the sort of approach you are suggesting in Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well in John 4. However, it is not immediately apparent to me how one squares all this with the bold declaratory approach of the apostles in Acts, which is really the only collection of scriptural examples of “witnessing” that we have – except to say, “There’s a time for this, and a time for that.” Your take on reconciling the two?
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:52pm
I think you provided the answer. There’s a time for each. In the case of the present essay, there is a background context as well in that it is common knowledge that I am a Christian theist and thus the “fade to black” is not my last word on the issue.
clamat says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 4:54pm
Typo above; Meryl “Streep,” not “Street.” Not to be obnoxious, I’m just a big fan of hers. For my money, the best actor – male or female – of the past 30 years.
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:03pm
Oops. Needless to say the spell check didn’t catch that one. I agree with your assessment too from “Sophie’s Choice” to “Kramer vs. Kramer” to “A Cry in the Dark” to _______. That’s why “Meryl StreeP” and “academy award” go together like ham ‘n’ eggs.
clamat says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:09pm
More on point: Glen Campbell, very sad. He hasn’t been in my pantheon for a long time, but when I was a kid I belted out “Rhinestone Cowboy” over and over ’til I was blue in the face. And “Wichita Lineman” is still wrenching. He was a fantastic guitarist, too – a great session musician early in his career.
clamat says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:14pm
And you should listen to more country music! Try Lyle Lovett’s eponymous first album. Wry, smart, and infinitely singable.
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:21pm
Okay, I admit that I listened to country music a few times while driving through Wyoming. But that’s because the only stations I could pick up on the radio were country.
Sorry, I’m going to pass on your suggestion, but I do so respectfully.
clamat says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:24pm
Well, I think you’re cheating yourself of some great music, but considering there’s admittedly a lot of dreck to wade through, fair enough.
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:34pm
I know that people who eat mushrooms think I’m depriving myself of some great food too, but somehow I don’t feel deprived.
clamat says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:59pm
I understand, I feel the same way about Jesus.
[Breaks arm patting self on back.]
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:08pm
Comparing Jesus to a mushroom? Brother, you are granting John Allegro’s work way more attention than it deserves.
[Arm vaporizes due to the supersonic speed of back-patting.]
clamat says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:16pm
Hah! Had to look that one up. Well played, Mr. Rauser, well played!
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 6:25pm
It was too good to pass up.
Mike Gantt says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:26pm
Indeed, anyone who can nail Julia Child AND Maggie Thatcher has got some acting chops, and then some. I hope she’ll do Hillary Clinton before she (i.e. either one of them) dies.
clamat says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:34pm
Oooh, good call! Streep would be perfect.
randal says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 5:35pm
That is a fascinating suggestion.
Jared says:
Friday, December 9, 2011 at 11:17pm
Reading the initial post and then following the comments to the bottom is a dizzying task … well done everybody!
randal says:
Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 2:54pm
You never know the direction things will go…
Kim Malone says:
Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 2:18am
Re: Glen Campbell
I know what you mean! I have become obsessed with him lately. I was too young to be much of a fan back in his Rhinestone Cowboy days…but now I have discovered an unbelievable portfolio and am addicted. Have you heard “Mull of Kintyre?”
Kim
randal says:
Sunday, December 11, 2011 at 5:08am
I had only heard McCartney’s version, but I just listened to Glen doing it on youtube, bagpipes and all. Awesome!
Just Wonderin' says:
Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 5:25am
Of course Campbell is country.