Papa Loved Mama

Papa Loved Mama
by Garth Brooks and Kim Williams

Papa loved Mama
Mama loved men
Mama's in the graveyard
Papa's in the pen

And with haiku-like precision, Garth Brooks hauls us into a dark world of infidelity and homicide. It’s made all the more horrifying being told matter-of-factly by one of the children of the conflict. On top of that, the music of the song adds to our discomfort by being at such odds with the lyrics: it rollicks along like an 18-wheeler in tenth gear. In short, it’s the perfect song for Full of Woe Wednesday! I’m your host, Fuelgrip Skip.

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Mr Brooks. He, too, is an Oklahoma boy. According to the papers, he’s set all kinds of records for album sales – Country or otherwise. And, we’re neighbors! Sort of. For those of you who have heard this story, please indulge me, but I know I’ll tell it better than my brother Fireplug does. A few years ago, Mr Brooks bought some property up by our family’s farm. The term “some property” may be slightly misleading. It was 2,800 acres: about four square miles. He promptly went about erecting an eight-foot high fence around it. That’s eight miles of fence for those of you keeping score. Think where we’d be today if we had gone long in chain link futures! Anyway, our properties adjoin each other for about 400 feet, so I guess I can technically call us next-door neighbors. But here’s the sad part: he must have spent all that money on chain link and now can’t afford a telephone – I’ve been waiting for an invitation to go fishing in one of his ponds or something and have never received a call. Oh well, every once in a while we get the benefit of a terrific fireworks show on his land.

But I digress. Speaking of fireworks, let’s get started on today’s song:

Papa drove a truck nearly all his life
You know it drove mama crazy being a trucker's wife
The part she couldn't handle was the being alone
I guess she needed more to hold than just a telephone
Papa called Mama each and every night
Just to ask her how she was and if us kids were alright
Mama would wait for that call to come in
When Daddy'd hang up she was gone again

The thing I really like about Country music is that you pretty much know the arc of the story in the first few lines. There’s usually an unexpected twist, and most likely some clever wordplay along the way, but the basic narrative line is usually set right up front. In the case of Papa Loved Mama, it adds to the suspense. I read an article where a film director (I think it was Steven Spielberg) was praising Alfred Hitchcock’s style of suspense as opposed to what passes as “suspense” today. He said, in essence, that Mr Hitchcock would let you know from the start that there was a bomb under someone’s seat, and the suspense and horror came in waiting to see if and when it was going to go off. By contrast, a lot of directors confuse “horror” with “suspense”: the bomb just goes off and it’s a grisly mess. I’ve noticed that, too. With Hitchcock’s style, you’re on the edge of your seat, even if you are looking sideways and partially covering your eyes. With the horror style or direction, you’re blown back into your seat with your hands over your face.

I think Papa Loved Mama covers both styles. It starts out rather Hitchcockian, if you’ll pardon the expression, but by the chorus, we’re moving into the other territory:

Mama was a looker
Lord, how she shined
Papa was a good'n
But the jealous kind
Papa loved Mama
Mama loved men
Mama's in the graveyard
Papa's in the pen

Boy, those last lines of the chorus tell the whole story. They’re short, packed with alliteration, and musically quite interesting. Mr Brooks builds to the end of the chorus and the melodic line climbs: “Papa loved Mama, Mama loved men . . .” As he holds the word “men” on that high tonic note, the accompaniment chops down in syncopated time. Then, on “Mama’s in the graveyard, Papa’s in the pen” – the part that sets it all out for us – it’s almost a throwaway line. And that makes it all the more memorable to me. Have you ever seen something staged by Twyla Tharp? Often, she has the dancers go through some incredibly difficult maneuvers, only to end the segment with them walking off stage flat-footed. Or maybe watch John Smoltz or Roger Clemens on the mound. Some pitchers, like Josh Beckett or Kenny Rogers, are all fired up during the inning and then keep that angry-faced, clenched-fist intensity going even after the inning is over. Smoltz and Clemens are intense while they’re pitching, but when they walk off the field, there’s a quietness there – not a calm maybe, just quiet. To me, it means “Look out: there’s a lot more to come.”

Well, we already know how the story ends, but Mr Brooks fills in the details in verse two, and there’s a lot more to come there, too:

Well, it was bound to happen and one night it did
Papa came home and it was just us kids
He had a dozen roses and a bottle of wine
If he was lookin' to surprise us, he was doin' fine
I heard him cry for Mama up and down the hall
Then I heard a bottle break against the bedroom wall
That old diesel engine made an eerie sound
When Papa fired it up and headed into town

How effective is this song in sticking in my memory? I have a diesel engine on our Excursion, and whenever I start it early on a winter morning to warm it up, I think about that “eerie sound” line. But as far as painting a lasting picture, the next four lines do the job:

Well, the picture in the paper showed the scene real well
Papa's rig was buried in the local motel
The desk clerk said he saw it all real clear
He never hit the brakes and he was shifting gears

It’s very hard to “un-see” something. Like the desk clerk or the children who are the innocent bystanders in this song, we can be blindsided by events: the bomb can go off unexpectedly. We must be persistent. The enemy seeks to sneak in deceptions subliminally, one frame at a time, with all those vain things that can charm us, like old-time theatre owners flashing “Popcorn!” on the screen. We know all too well the words of the old hymn, “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.” But we know that Jesus is persistent in his vision with us: he stands “at the door, knocking (Revelation 3:20)” with a “love that will not let us go,” to quote another great old hymn.

I once worked with a man whose ancestors were from Hungary. He had taken up the hobby—like some men might tie fishing flies—of painting those ornate, incredibly detailed eggs you see in Eastern Europe. He told me, “You can’t work on these eggs, concentrating on their symbolism of the Risen Lord, without being changed by them.” His words came back to me as I was thinking about today’s song. You can understand the powerful hold of images and icons. The question for me becomes: am I giving the Lord sufficient time before my eyes? And maybe more importantly, what are we setting before our children?

“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” – Deuteronomy 6:6-9

Where in our lives are we persistent in our vision of the Risen Lord? I believe it is imperative to have such contact and communion with Him so that we are constantly reinforcing his vision in our lives. As we impress the Lord’s great Good News on our children, as we talk about Jesus with one another, as we write his name on our gates, as we pass our faith on, he becomes our vision—the Lord of our hearts!