It’s Saturday night and I am sitting at my keyboard, listening to the rain and thunder outside.1 I am hoping it won’t turn to hail. It could, of course; it’s been that kind of a week.
I won’t bore anyone by recounting the myriad of little things that made this past week “that kind of a week.” Instead, I will move straight to the conclusion, which, taken here from Hank Williams, is “Everything’s Okay.”
Hank Williams and his life story are pretty well known. He began his career in 1937, when he was 14 years old. By the time he died, on January 1, 1953 (at age 29), he had become the most popular country singer in the USA. He had his demons, along with his successes. Those demons included alcoholism, abuse of prescription drugs and a failed marriage. Hank was born with a type of spina bifida – a spinal disorder – that caused him back pain throughout his life; and that was one of the reasons he sought relief in painkillers and alcohol.
The pain was also evident in many of Hank’s songs, though at a tempo that made the listener feel good – songs like “Hey, Good Lookin'”; “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)”; “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “Lovesick Blues.”
During the last three years of his life, Hank recorded some songs with a different feel to them, under the name of Luke the Drifter. Luke was a character that he and his producer created, envisioning a haggard drifter moving along from place to place and collecting the stories of the people he meets and the things he sees. Many of the Luke the Drifter songs are spoken rather than sung; and nearly all are moralisitic, and stand out as religious or philosophical cautionary tales.
The album entitled Hank Williams as Luke the Drifter was not released until after his death. All of those songs in one place is an overpowering recognition of the essential goodness of humanity, but The Drifter did not sugar coat the pain that allowed such recognition. If a depressed person sat down and listened to the entire album, he could potentially be pushed “over the edge.” It is difficult to think of sadder songs than “Men With Broken Hearts” or “Pictures from Life’s Other Side” or “The Funeral.”
One of the most upbeat songs on The Drifter’s album is this week’s Song of the Week, “Everything’s Okay.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuFwHJ52iQo