Desiring Machine

Been re-listening to Tom Russell. He has this great song about Mickey Mantle called “The Kid from Spavinaw“. It is a haunting, introspective tune that puts on the persona of Mickey Mantle engaged in a melancholic reflection of his youth.

Strike 1, that was the drinkin’
Strike 2, there go the knees
Then my old man died in Denver
Some type of lung disease
When God starts throwing change ups
You can swing with fame or wealth
If I’d known I was going to live this long
I’d taken better care of myself.

The song is brilliant because it is a nice twist. Years ago Paul Simon asked the question

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson
‘Joltin Joe’ has left and gone away?

A mourning of the the loss of heros, a clamoring from the outside to find meaning in the phantasm of celebrity and hero worship. Tom Russell’s song is much more interesting because it turns this around and paints a portrait from inside the man. A deeply more intimate portrait. But the song comes across as autobiographical. We are hearing the persona of Mantle telling his story, a deeply personal story. Most definitely a fabrication on Russell’s part, being that he is not Mickey Mantle, but deeply affective nonetheless. It is as if listening to Mickey Mantle doing his own reminiscing, perhaps not much different than your grandfather talking about the war, or some long gone glory days. A tale told from the vantage point of old age. It lacks the generality of Springsteen’s “Glory Days”, and doesn’t try to convey some sort of share experience or viewpoint. The point of view is very specific and immanent. An intriguing comment on identity in so far as it is an insight into the soul of someone as told from a third party. Tom Russell in this song becomes Mickey Mantle, and provides us affective specificity. The effect is quite moving. I never really thought too much about Mickey Mantle, other than as a hero of 50s baseball. As a kid In the 80s used to marvel the price of a Mickey Mantle rookie baseball card. Mickey Mantle was always a “commodity” to me. Experience as a price in Beckett Magazine pricing index. Only later to be physically experienced behind the glass at Bill Clinton’s Presidential library. Someone had given the president a mint condition rookie card, and it was on display in the “Presidential Gifts” wing of the library. But listening to Russell’s song gives me something more tangible to hang onto. It transports me to see things as an old man, perhaps forgotten hero, thinking back on his life and the things that were meaningful and immediate. Certainly not the celebrity that we all know, but Russell’s song reveals an interior that none of us know.

I don’t miss the lights of Times Square
I don’t miss tut shore’s bar
I miss my old man pitchin’ baseball
In the shed in our backyard
I wish that he were still alive
To see these trophies on my shelf
If I’d known I was going to live this long
I’d taken better care of myself

On the same album Tom Russell also has a catchy little diddy about Muhammad Ali. Which is probably one of my all time favorite songs.