Songs of Renown: Joe Henry "Our Song"

"The game of language- the physical sounds of words, how they couple and disperse- is what inevitably leads me to meaning......... Songs are, indeed deliberate inventions that we are frequently wont to adopt as gospel; and I am timid to explain mine, probably because they leave me at a loss. I know they Mean, I just don't always know what they mean" 
Joe Henry.

In Joe Henry's Our Song the singer songwriter uses the persona of US baseball legend Willie Mays to lament what has become of his country.

 
Joe Henry has written an illuminating description of how the song Our Song (from his 2007 CD Civilians) was formed, crafted and delivered. 

Henry describes how the song started with a single line and then emerged more fully formed from a  series of events, daily happenings and reflections on the larger social and political context. Henry writes:

.... songwriting for me has absolutely nothing to do with self expression and everything to do with discovery. I write to find out what I am writing about. I may, after the fact, discover that something personal and known to me has indeed been expressed but the desire to do such is not what propels me forward, nor would personal fact, inadvertently revealed ever be part of what might make a song successful in my estimation"

Joe Henry's website is here and here is a link to a blog specifically about the man and his music.

Our Song
Joe Henry

I saw Willie Mays
At a Scotsdale Home Depot
Looking at Garage Door Springs
At the far end of the 14th floor

His wife stood there beside him
She was quiet and they both were proud
I gave them room but was close enough
That I heard him when he said out loud

This was my country
This was my song
Somewhere in the middle there
Though it started badly and it's ending wrong

This was my country
This frightful and this angry land
But it's my right if the worst of it might still
Somehow make me a better man

The sun is unforgiving and
There's nobody who would choose this town
But we've squandered so much of our good will
That there's nowhere else will have us now

We push in line at the picture show
For cool air and a chance to see
A vision of ourselves portrayed as
Younger and braver and humble and free.

This was our country
This was our song
Somewhere in the middle there
Though it started badly and it's ending wrong

This was our country
This frightful and this angry land
But it's my right if the worst of it might still
Somehow make me a better man

I've started something I can't finish
And I barely leave the house it's true
I keep her out on my sores and joints
But I've guess I've had my blessings too

I've got my mother's pretty feet
And a factory keeps my house in shade
My children they've both been paroled
And we get back all the peace we've made

I feel safe so far from heaven
From towers and their ocean views
From here I see the future coming across
What soon will be beaches too

But that was him
I'm almost sure
The greatest centerfielder of all time
Stooped by the burden of endless dreams
His and yours and mine

He hooked each spring beneath his feet
He leaned over then he stood upright
Testing each against his weight
For one that had some play and some fight

He's just like us I want to tell him
And our needs are small enough
Something to slow our heavy door
Something to raise one up

This was my country
This was my song
Somewhere in the middle there
Though it started badly and it's ending wrong

This was God's country
This frightful and this angry land
But if it's his will
The worst of it might still
Somehow make me a better man

If it's his will
The worst of it might still
Somehow make me a better man