Careful Now My Son ... My Unfortunate, Wounded Son
Updated: 4 days ago
Before I get to our 2020 single, "Careful Now My Son," and the meaning of the title of this post, I want to go back to a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's anti-Vietnam War song, "Who'll Stop the Rain," I did for my 2017 anti-Trump album, Eleven Nine.
The cover did not turn out as I intended. I had had some success with an altered-lyric cover of "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes.
I liked the song for the beginning of the Trump era because I thought the rain in the song could be understood as representing the right-wing ideology that was falling like rain via social media in the social media of 2017--much like the right-wing and racist pro-Vietnam-war rain that fell so hard in the late sixties and early seventies, around the time the song was written--spreading benighted "confusion on the ground." Then as now, this right-wing confusion would lead to the election of two of the worst and most dangerous presidents in U.S. history: Nixon and Trump.
My Cosmos Factory when it came out in the
"Good people through the ages" try to find enlightenment but can't because the "clouds of mystery" and consistently let loose a deluge of delusion:
Long as I remember the rain's been comin' down Clouds of mystery pourin' confusion on the ground Good men through the ages tryin' to find the sun And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain?
I went down Virginia, seekin' shelter from the storm Caught up in the fable, I watched the tower grow Five-Year Plans and New Deals, wrapped in golden chains And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain?
Heard the singers playin', how we cheered for more The crowd had rushed together, tryin' to keep warm Still the rain kept pourin', fallin' on my ears And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain?
I also love the second line of the second verse, "Caught up in the fable, I watched the tower grow," which I read as an expression of Fogerty's populism: the fable being the traditional (and white) American Dream and the tower being the classic metaphor for the aristocracy in their castles with towers and, less anachronistically, the more modern aristocracy in their gilded Trump towers.
On Eleven Nine, I also did a combined cover of "I Hear Them All" (OCMS) and "This Land Is Your Land" (Woody Guthrie)--a combination I "borrowed" from the Dave Rawlings Machine). I didn't use the same verses that DRM used from Guthrie's classic. I used the verses I thought best represented the problems of our times. The first one I used is probably the most anti-capitalist of them all:
Was a big high wall there
Tried to stop me.
The sign was painted,
said 'Private Property.'
But on the backside,
it didn't say nothing.
This land was made for you and me.
The second verse that I used from "This Land Is Your Land" contrasts the wealth of the Christian church with the poverty of the hungry.
There in the shadow, Of the ornate steeple,
By the relief office, I saw my people;
As they stood there hungry,
I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?
Guthrie wrote his classic in 1940, a time when there were still millions enduring hunger due to the Great Depression. It was also a time when the success of the New Deal was recognized by everyone except the most hardened capitalists.
Guthrie reworked the melody and lyrics of the Carter Family's "When the World's On Fire" to write a song that would essentially criticize Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" for its myopic jingoism. Guthrie's song is a masterpiece because the simple beauty of the song matches the simple beauty of the message.
The same is mostly true with Fogerty's "Who'll ." The fable of American exceptionalism was a disgusting lie told as a rationalization for why the U.S. was sending troops to Vietnam. As with Guthrie, Fogerty's simple song conveys this message with a combination of powerful poetry and stirring music. I write "mostly true" because Fogerty mars his song with the line "Five-Year Plans and New Deals, wrapped in golden chains," which I read as a false equivalence between the murderous and disastrous Five-Year plans of the Soviet Union and the left-populism of Roosevelt's highly successful New Deal, the very New Deal that "This Land is Your Land" celebrates.
Before recording my cover of "Who'll Stop the Rain," I wanted to ask John Fogerty if I could make slight changes to the lyrics. Though this might sound grandiose, insane, and a little stupid, I had had some success before asking big-time recording artists for permission to change lyrics, as evidenced by my Gano-sanctioned altered-lyric cover of "Blister in the Sun."
I not only wanted to update Fogarty's Vietnam-era song; I wanted to take out the part of the song that I see as evidence of Fogarty's myopia, which is evidenced by the line "Five-Year Plans and New Deals, wrapped in golden chains," which I read as creating a false equivalence between the murderous and disastrous Five-Year plans of the Soviet Union and the left-populism of Roosevelt's highly successful New Deal.
As with "Who'll Stop the Rain," "I Hear Them All" uses the tower metaphor:
So while you sit and whistle Dixie with your money and your power
I can hear the flowers growing in the rubble of the towers
I hear leaders quit their lying
I hear babies quit their crying
I hear soldiers quit their dying, one and all
I read Ketch Secor's second line as an image of a utopian future where the towers fall and, in their place, grow a common boomer symbol for counter-culture. The rest of the stanza is rather dark and makes it clear that what the singer hears is a utopian fantasy that will never happen.
Both of these songs--"I Hear Them All" and "This Land Is Your Land"-- are clearly left-populism classics.
Mark and I wrote "Careful Now My Son" in the spring of 2020. We did it in a hard rock style for the demo, but Mike Butler, our producer, got inspired and changed the style to Americana. Mike's Americana version blew us both away.
"Careful Now My Son" is "Song 1" of the thirty songs Mark and I wrote for our "music in the time of coronavirus" collection, which will all be produced and mixed by Mike Butler (American Bardo, This Mortal Farce, and every release since then).
It's also song number one on my Concord Songs playlist, which is a collection of our many Americana songs we've released over the years:
Careful Now My Son
(Anders, O’Bitz 2020)
We won’t see it in time
Won’t remember what was
So far behind
Far behind
We won’t see what will come
We won’t see what will come
In time
Out of time
Careful now my son
Think before you do
Good fortune may not come
To you
We won’t know what it’s like
Never been here before
In our lives
Any lives
We won’t know what to do
We won’t know who to blame
Or what’s true
What is true
Careful now my son
Think before you do
Good fortune may not come
To you
Careful now my son
Good fortune may not come
What have we left for you?
When I wrote these words, I was reacting to both the pandemic and Trumpism's increasing assault on truth.
Some listeners have objected to the "we won't know who to blame" line--arguing that they know who to blame for Trumpism and the high cost of COVID-19 on the U.S.: Trump, his millions of MAGA followers, and Trumpism.
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 would have been lower with a competent and reality-based leader in charge, for sure. And it would have been lower if more Republicans had simply thought about others, got vaccinated, and worn their masks. The line works for COVID-19 since we still don't know where it came from.
With regard to Trump, the MAGA millions, and Trumpism, I'm not sure simply blaming the MAGA millions for their Trumpism and Trump really gets us very far. I think it is important to look at the long history of violent racism and violent right-wing extremism at the core of American history and society.
There is a direct line from Trump and Trumpism back to the Tea Party, and then to Reaganism, and then to the John Birch Society, and then to McCarthyism, and then to Lindbergh and the America First movement, and then to rabid white supremacism of the first quarter of the 20th century, and then to Jim Crow and "the Lost Cause" of the defeated Confederacy, and then to centuries of American slavery starting before 1619.
It would be hard to know who or what to blame with regard to this extensive history of what might be called right-wing America--this history that makes up what could be considered the core of American history, the racist core of America.
I really like what Kaithlin Reuther had to say about "Careful Now My Son" in her New Sick Music review:
When faced with paradigm-shifting realities, there are many ways to cope. Eric Anders and Mark O’Bitz are taking relief in creation. Their collection, aptly titled Music in the Time of Coronavirus, is an exploration of the anxieties, isolation, and hostility that arose from 2020.
“Careful Now my Son” comes off this collection and, as the only Americana song on the record, was chosen as a single. Though this may not be a peek at the genre intentions of the project, it certainly shows the deftness of songwriting and complex, moody melodies these artists can create.
The song is wholly unified, layered up, and smooth. It’s hard to believe that everyone involved created it while staying in place. The lushness of the instrumentation is rich, with resonant guitar plucking a melody over sliding ambiance and a clapping rhythm. Anders’ vocals linger, laying out a somber picture. “We won’t know what to do / We won’t know who to blame /Or what’s true,” he sings starkly.
While the duo wanted to explore the coronavirus pandemic’s emotional toll in their music, the political anxieties of the Trump era also seep in. “Careful Now my Son” can be considered a continuation of the ideas developed in “Wounded Son” on 2019’s Ghosts to Ancestors.
"Wounded Son" is track #4 on Ghosts to Ancestors and track #2 on Concord Songs.
Wounded Son
(©2018 Anders/O’Bitz)
Again in tatters
Burning crosses
Civil war dead
Haunting us
Roots on both sides
Such old matters
Hard to let go
Violent home
Hey
Don’t relive that “great again”
Way down low
Wounded son
Old fractures
Like we have
Go right through the bone
These ghosts they’re hauntin’ us
Again, again
Seen what matters
Seen the losses
All this hate that’s
Haunting us
Roots on all sides
Such old matters
Hard to let go
Violent home
Hey
Don’t relive that “great again”
Way down low
Wounded son
Old fractures
Like we have
Go right through the bone
These ghosts they’re hauntin’ us
Again, again, again, again
These lives matter
Mounting losses
Racist war dead
Haunting us
Can’t root both sides
When hate matters
Try to let go
Violent home
Hey
Don’t relive that “great again”
Way down low
Wounded son
Old fractures
Like we have
Go right through the bone
These ghosts they’re hauntin’ us
Again
Don’t relive that “great again”
Way down low
Wounded son
Hey
Don’t relive that “great again”
Wounded son
As you can see from the lyrics, "Careful Now My Son" is a continuation of the political themes of "Wounded Son"--though the pandemic themes are obviously new. These two songs are so androcentric because white men are the "sons" in question here, primarily the sons of the American South, "way down low." Racism and sexism are both very important to Trumpism and the American right in general.
These sons are aggrieved and see themselves as victims of oppression--i.e., "wounded"--with respect to non-white Americans, much like the Nazis saw themselves as the victims of the Jews.
The many myths of "the Lost Cause" are extremely important to the identity politics of these wounded sons. The "great again" in question is an antebellum time of true white (male) supremacy of slavery--or, closer in, the pre-civil-rights 1950s. The white supremacist terrorists who bungled their insurrection on January 6th, 2021, thought they could steal the election for their fascistic Great Leader so he could lead them back to these "great" times for white male Americans, these Proud Boys, these "wounded sons."
For more on our "music in the time of coronavirus" collection, see my Sirens Go By post on this blog.
Eric Anders, 1/20/21
Update from 9/9/23:
I was interviewed by Viola Karmy of Rock Era Magazine after the release of Answers Belie. You can read the whole interview at "Rock Era Magazine interviews Eric Anders":
Viola Karmy: The entire album is amazing! I like the diversity of sound and themes ... Finally, thank you for your time! Do you have any final words to say for whoever is facing one of the situations you conveyed in the album?
Eric Anders: You mentioned before that Answers Belie is an intense and moving album. Mark and I were in an intense mood when we wrote these songs because we are experiencing our current times intensely as very dark times.
Mark and I are both terrified by climate change and the rightward and crazy shift in American politics and culture.
We wrote "Searise" with my older daughter when she was eleven. She also sings on the record, starting about halfway through--as does her younger sister in the choruses. This song is about how crazy it must be to be a child growing up with the world being made unlivable by human-caused climate change--and how horrible to be a father who will leave such a dangerous, "sullied," and dysfunctional world to his kids.
These are dark times and it is important that artists engage with the forces that are making these times of ours so dark. I think "Rich Men North of Richmond" gets way wrong what these forces are ... the forces that are darkening our times. Instead of engaging the conspiracy-deluded MAGA crowd and "rich men" like Rupert Murdoch who make money by spreading the lies that undergird the MAGA worldview, Oliver Anthony lashes out at obese welfare recipients and politicians in general.
His voice and music sound great, but they carry a confused and dangerous message--and I see it as very bad art because of this, despite his excellent voice and melody. The song and the artist come across to me as ultimately very smug, naive, and misguided.
If anyone out there is looking for a political anthem steeped in traditional American music, please check out our "Concord Songs" Americana songs playlist on our “Hear the Music” page on AndersObitz.com ... and then cross-check it with our “Morton’s Pillory Plea” political songs playlist to discover the many overlaps.
For a more folk-rock anthem, I'd recommend any of the political songs on Answers Belie. For a singer-songwriter-style anthem, I'd recommend “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” and "Searise."
For an Americana anthem, I would recommend “Careful Now My Son,” “Wounded Son,” or “Far Gone” as political-cultural antidotes to Oliver Anthony's right-wing populist virus.
Thank you, Viola, again for this opportunity and for your great review of Answers Belie. We are very grateful.
Eric Anders, 9/3/23