Drugstore Truck Driving Man

I heard Woodstock on LP yesterday, after a very long time. And Drugstore Truck Driving Man has never sounded so relevant to the times.

Originally written by Roger McGuinn and Graham Parsons, and performed by the Byrds, but i like Joan Baez's lyrics more -- she makes slight, but key changes. Here are those lyrics:

He's a drugstore truck drivin' man
He's the head of the Ku Klux Klan
When summer comes rolling around
We'll be lucky to get out of town

He's been like a father to me
He's like the only DJ you can hear after three
And i'm an all-night singer in a country band
And if he don't like me, he don't understand

He's got him a house on the hill
And he can play country music till you've had your fill
He's a lawman's friend, he's an all-night DJ
Sure don't think much like the records he plays

He don't like resistance, I know
He said it last night on a big TV show
He's got him a medal he won in the war
Weighs five hundred pounds and it sleeps by the door

He's a drugstore truck drivin' man
He's the head of the Ku Klux Klan
When summer comes rolling around
We'll be lucky to get out of town

As i was listening to it last night, it struck me that the parallels are quite astonishing:

1. Think of the KKK reference as not specific to a particular ideo-geographical configuration, but as an organization or point of view that goes after a non-mainstream/ marginalized people for whatever reason.

2. Think of the 'music' in the lyrics of the song as ideas, of democracy, equality, the rhetoric of the brotherhood of man.

3. The house on the hill. Isn't the hill called Raisina? This could also be read as a general reference to established power.

4. 'Sure don't think much like the music he plays'. Self explanatory, i am thinking.

5. 'He don't like resistance i know/ He said it last night on a big TV show'. well, ha.

6. The medal in the war is a reference to past glory. Just take away the redneck hick aura, and put in the harvard education, and it all falls into place.

I am ending this post with very very dry laughter.