Light On Dark Water

Red Sovine: Phantom 309

Weekend Music

I listened to Tom Waits Nighthawks at the Diner for the first time a couple of days ago. He performs this story–it's not exactly a song, though it has a musical accompaniment, and I noticed that he didn't write it, which led me to discover that it was once something of a hit for country singer Red Sovine.


 

I love Tom Waits, but I may prefer Sovine's more straightforward version. Here is Waits's rendition, much longer although it's pretty much the same words.


 

I think most people are immediately and strongly moved by a story of someone sacrificing himself for another. Ayn Rand has been in the news a lot lately, with the release of the Atlas Shrugged movie. I wonder what she made of that emotion, and its persistence. 

Maclin Horton
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31 responses to “Red Sovine: Phantom 309”

  1. Janet

    Well, it’s a nice song, but you really have to suspend your imagination. Who could ever believe that you could get a cup of coffee for a dime?
    AMDG

    Reply
  2. Mac

    Yeah, I had the same thought. But in a way it adds to the effect–as if it’s all taking place in a semi-legendary past, where fact and myth are hard to separate.
    (Who in 1967 would ever have believed that anyone would pay four ^%$#!@*! dollars for a cup of coffee?)

    Reply
  3. Janet

    Not only that anyone would do it, but that I do it.
    AMDG

    Reply
  4. Mac

    I’m not sure I’ve ever paid quite that much, but it’s only because I don’t much like those elaborate concoctions. I am willing to pay $1.75 for plain black coffee.

    Reply
  5. Janet

    Well, I’m willing to pay $4.10 for something that has coffee in it, and is about the consistency of a milkshake and is just over 100 calories.
    AMDG

    Reply
  6. Janet

    But, I can’t really afford it.
    Anyway, the thing I like about this song, particularly the first version, is the innocence.
    AMDG

    Reply
  7. Mac

    Yeah, it’s hard to imagine anyone writing something like that now, or that it would be popular.
    I would certainly pay $4.10 for plain coffee if the alternative were no coffee at all.

    Reply
  8. Dave

    Decidedly low brow, but the story was parodied in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. The driver was Large Marge. She doesn’t mention a name for her rig, but as Pee Wee crosses in front of the truck you see large numbers ‘0009’ on the grill.
    I was already a fan of Tom Waits when that movie came out 20? yrs ago, and I wondered if but 2 other people in the audience caught the joke. Haven’t heard the Tom Waits version for 15yrs. Thanks.
    You keep mentioning Ayn Rand as if some part of you was ready for another flame-out discussion 🙂 Though I suppose with the movie out, there are a lot of battles out there distracting the attention.

    Reply
  9. Mac

    Actually the possibility of another Rand war was a reason for not doing a new post about her. The subject has just been on my mind because the movies has given rise to another round of discussion about her in the blogosphere.
    Never saw the PeeWee movie, but obviously I wouldn’t have gotten the reference, either. I was a little disappointed in Nighthawks but I’ll give it another try. I didn’t discover Waits till long after he’d made that big stylistic change around Swordfish, so the earlier stuff now seems sort of…early.

    Reply
  10. Craig

    I did not realize that “Phantom 309” was a cover song; I will definitely try to listen to the original soon — when I am not at work. That song is probably my favourite from Nighthawks at the Diner, but I also like “Foggy Night”, “Emotional Weather Report”, “Warm Beer and Cold Women”, “Better Off Without a Wife”, and “Eggs and Sausage”. Actually, I like pretty much everything on that record except the vulgarity in one or two of the interludes.
    I often sing “Eggs and Sausage” when I am making breakfast on Saturday mornings, much to the annoyance of my long-suffering wife.

    Reply
  11. Janet

    Well, if I were your wife I would be more upset if you were singing “Warm Beer and Cold Women.”
    AMDG

    Reply
  12. Mac

    I think some of the rambling narrative stuff toward the end–Putnam County and Spare Parts–was what I liked best on one hearing. Sometime I’ll sit down and listen to it at home–I was listening in my somewhat noisy old car, so I missed some things. Normally the bass just disappears at highway speed, but luckily I was at a stop light for “My bass player oughta be chained up somewhere.”
    Do you offer pie with breakfast, Craig? That might smooth things over with your wife.
    I’m hungry.

    Reply
  13. Craig

    That’s a good point, Janet! Perhaps I’ll point that out next time I get the I-can’t-believe-I-married-someone-who-sings-in-the-morning look. A rendition of “Better Off Without a Wife” would probably also not go over very well — and it would be most untrue.
    No pie, Mac, and no coffee either, but everything else named in that song is fair game: eggs, sausage, a side of toast, a roll, hashbrowns, chili in a bowl, burgers and fries (well, maybe at lunch).
    I’m hungry too.

    Reply
  14. Janet

    My daddy used to say that when he and my mother were first married she would start a fight every morning. The way that she did this was that she would come in the kitchen and say, “Good morning.”
    AMDG

    Reply
  15. Mac

    Poor man.
    I also very very much want some coffee.

    Reply
  16. Janet

    Today would be a good day for intravenous coffee.
    AMDG

    Reply
  17. Mac

    On the bright side, I have leftover pizza for lunch.

    Reply
  18. Craig

    Intravenous coffee: an inoculatte.

    Reply
  19. Janet

    Very nice, Craig.
    AMDG

    Reply
  20. Mac

    I need coffee to help me recover from that.

    Reply
  21. Janet

    One IV bag, coming up!
    AMDG

    Reply
  22. Mac

    Actually I wouldn’t want that–I love the taste too much. But then I guess you aren’t saying I have to take it intravenously. I’ll just sip it from the bag.

    Reply
  23. Craig

    Were I forced to take some of the black nectar of the devil bean, I would want it through an IV. Pretty much everything about coffee, and especially its taste, I find quite disgusting. Surely I am not alone in this?

    Reply
  24. Mac

    Yes, you are quite, quite alone. It’s you against the rest of the human race. Even people who don’t drink it like the smell.

    Reply
  25. Janet

    I didn’t say anything because I was going to wait and see if there were any other sad people out there.
    AMDG

    Reply
  26. Craig

    Well, I have one friend who feels as I do, so I am not quite alone.
    I once worked in a cafe, and my duties included starting the various coffee machines in the morning. I had to smell all the different grounds as I filled the machines. It was horrible.

    Reply
  27. Janet

    I had a similar experience with beer–and I was pregnant.
    AMDG

    Reply
  28. Mac

    Clearly I have overstated my case a touch. Coincidentally, I encountered someone today who doesn’t drink coffee. He didn’t say he hated it, but plainly he doesn’t like it. So instead of coffee or water he was drinking…I can hardly bring myself to say it…diet Coke. Now there’s something nasty.
    Even in my periods of abstinence from coffee, I take the opportunity to experience the wonderful aroma while my wife is fixing hers.

    Reply
  29. Janet

    Don’t go there Maclin, because then we’ll have to talk about canned chili and who knows what. 😉
    AMDG

    Reply
  30. Craig

    It could just be because of familiarity, but I like Waits’ version better. Red Sovine seems to skip through it too briskly, whereas Waits brings out the drama and the sentimentality better. That lounge lizard act is hard to beat too.

    Reply
  31. Mac

    Well, the truth is, I’m not crazy about either of them as art–I suppose Sovine was constrained by the limits of the single format and expectations, as well as by the country music industry’s rather…industrial methods. But Waits’s seems overdone. It interests me more as a cultural artifact than for its artistic merits.

    Reply

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