Bobby Bare – "Detroit City" (1963)

By day I make the cars

By night I make the bars

Between 1940 and 1960, about seven million poor whites took the “Hillbilly Highway” out of Appalachia and settled in Detroit and the other manufacturing centers of the upper Midwest.

An Appalachian family in 1940

One magazine article described the Appalachians as “clannish, proud, disorderly, [and] untamed to urban ways.”  When Detroit residents were surveyed concerning what kind of people they found most undesirable, hillbillies ranked second only to criminals.

Poor whites weren’t the only ones who left the South in the post-World War II period in pursuit of the American dream.  About five million African-Americans emigrated from the South during the forties, fifties, and sixties and moved to the Midwest and West in the hope of finding not only higher-paying jobs, but escaping “Jim Crow” segregation.

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The previous 2 or 3 lines featured “Born to Run,” a song sung by a young man who was eager to leave behind the limitations of life in his hometown and strike out for a new place where he could achieve the American dream.  He doesn’t know where that place is, but he’s sure there’s a better life for him out there somewhere. 

Today’s featured song picks up that young man’s life a few years later, when he’s beginning to think that maybe life back home wasn’t so bad after all.

Postwar Detroit may have been a place where even a poor, uneducated Southerner could make some serious do-re-mi working in a Ford or GM factory, but leaving behind your family and friends was a high price to pay for a well-paying job.  

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Bob Dylan’s 2022 book, The Philosophy of Modern Song, consists of short, impressionistic essays on 66 very different records – everything from “Mack the Knife” to “My Generation” to “Viva Las Vegas” to “Ball of Confusion” to “The Whiffenpoof Song.”

“Detroit City” was the very first of the 66 songs that Dylan wrote about in that book.  Here’s part of what he had to say about it:

In this song you’re the prodigal son.  

You went to sleep last night in Detroit City. . . . From the postcards [that you sent home], everybody assumes you’re a bigwig, that things are cool and beautiful, but they’re not, and the disgrace of failure is overwhelming.  Your life is unraveling.

You’re going to take your foolish self-love and egotism and go back to what’s familiar, back to the ones that’ll stand by you . . . You’re going back to where you can clear your life up, going back to people of understanding.  The people who know you best. 

But Dylan thinks the singer is just fooling himself if he thinks that going back to where he came from is going to make everything right again:

This is not so much the song of a dreamer, but the song of someone who is caught up in a fantasy of the way things used to be.  But the listener knows that it just doesn’t exist.  There is no mother, no dear old papa, sister, or brother.  They are all either dead or gone.  The girl he’s dreaming about got married to a divorce attorney and she has three kids.  Like thousands of others he left the farm, came to the big city to get ahead, and got lost.

Thomas Wolfe famously said “You can’t go home again.”  Dylan agrees with him.

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“Detroit City” was a top ten country hit for Bobby Bare in 1963, winning the Grammy for Best Country & Western Recording.

Country-soul artist Arthur Alexander – the only songwriter whose songs have been recorded by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan – covered “Detroit City” in 1965.  

As one reviewer noted, the message of that song – that you might come to regret your decision to leave home and head to Detroit (or wherever) in search of greener pastures – is one that black Americans could relate to every bit as much as poor Southern whites.

None of the dopes who suggested songs for the CBS Sunday Morning “Essential American Songbook” mentioned “Detroit City.”  But that record was good enough to be the first one that Bob Dylan wrote about in his book, and it’s good enough to be included in the 2 OR 3 LINES QUINTESSENTIAL AMERICAN SONGBOOK.  

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Click here to listen to Bobby Bare’s 1963 recording of “Detroit City.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Bruce Springsteen – "Born to Run" (1975)

Someday girl, I don’t know when

We’re gonna get to that place

Where we really want to go

In 1774, the Earl of Dunmore – who had been named colonial Governor of Virginia by King George III – wrote that Americans “for ever imagine the Lands further off are still better than those upon which they are already settled.”

“If they attained Paradise,” he added, “they would move on if they heard of a better place farther west.”

Lord Dunmore

My ancestors migrated from England to Virginia not long after Lord Dunmore wrote those words.  After a few decades there, they packed up and moved to Kentucky and Tennessee – presumably in search of a better life than they were experiencing in Virginia.  

Apparently, they also found life in Kentucky and Tennessee to be somewhat lacking because after a few more decades, they decided that the grass must be greener in Missouri and Arkansas and moved there.  

I’m not sure why they didn’t keep going west until they got to California and “attained Paradise” – which would have been the smart play – but they didn’t.

Of course, the bloom is off the rose when it comes to California, and nowadays a lot of people who are living there are starting to head back east.  But back in the day, California was the place you oughta be if you wanted to live the American dream.

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“Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country,” the newspaperman Horace Greeley famously wrote in 1865. 

When he wrote those words, westward was the way to go if you wanted a better life.  

Horace Greeley

But Greeley’s point wasn’t so much about moving in a particular direction.  It was about being brave enough to pull up stakes and move on when the life you were living wasn’t the life you wanted.

After all, the American dream is about attaining your best possible life – and if that requires getting the hell out of Dodge and looking for opportunities elsewhere, that’s what Americans do.

Including the restless young protagonist of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.”

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The 250 songs that were chosen for the CBS Sunday Morning “Essential American Songbook” include five by Bruce Springsteen.  But “Born to Run” isn’t one of them. 

You have GOT to be kidding me.  “Born to Run” is clearly Bruce Springsteen’s best record.  (If you don’t agree with me, you and I aren’t going to be friends.)  And it’s a quintessentially American record to boot.

Regular readers of my wildly popular little blog know that 2 or 3 lines is not the biggest fan of “The Boss.”  But I have to admit that Springsteen absolutely nailed it with “Born to Run” – which is one of the 13 songs I’ve chosen to include in the 2 OR 3 LINES QUINTESSENTIAL AMERICAN SONGBOOK.  

The records that I featured in the previous two posts are about roadtrips.  So is today’s featured song – sort of.  

But while “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” and “I’ve Been Everywhere” celebrate the joy that Americans feel when they get their motors running and head out on the highway***, the protagonist of “Born to Run” isn’t looking for adventure when he hits the road – he’s firing up his chrome-wheeled and fuel-injected chariot out of sheer desperation.

[*** – Recognize that reference to “Born to Be Wild”?  If you’re wondering why that record didn’t make the cut for my quintessential American songbook, it’s because Steppenwolf was more Canadian than American.]

Like many young men, he feels trapped in his dead-end job and his dead-end hometown.  He begs his girlfriend to “break this trap” with him.  We’ll “run ’til we drop,” he tells her.  “Baby, we’ll never go back.”   

Where exactly are they headed?  He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t particularly care.  But he’s betting on it being better than where they are now:

Someday girl, I don’t know when

We’re gonna get to that place

Where we really want to go

And we’ll walk in the sun

 

If getting to that place requires taking a chance – in other words, walking “out on the wire” – so be it.  Chasing the American dream isn’t for the faint-hearted.

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Click here to hear Bruce Springsteen’s masterpiece, “Born to Run.”

 

Click here to buy “Born to Run” from Amazon.

Creedence Clearwater Revival – "Fortunate Son" (1969)

But when the taxman comes to the door

Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale

I don’t know much about Jelly Roll other than that he has a goofy name and a lot of disturbing tattoos.  (If I’ve ever heard one of his records, it was purely by accident.)

Jelly Roll

But of the 90 actors, athletes, authors, businesspeople, comedians, filmmakers, journalists, musicians, and politicians who were asked by the CBS Sunday Morning show to name three essential Americans songs, Jelly Roll did the best job.

Yes, he ignored CBS’s instructions and picked two songs instead of three.  But as we learned in the previous 2 or 3 lines, it’s very American not to do what they tell you to do.

And the two he picked – Rage Against the Machine “Killing in the Name” and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” – exemplify quintessential American character traits as well or better than any other two records I can think of.

That’s why those two records were unanimous choices for the 2 OR 3 LINES QUINTESSENTIAL AMERICAN SONGBOOK.

So kudos to Jelly Roll for a job well done.  You f*cking nailed it, dude!

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There’s a scene in the 1971 movie Big Jake where John Wayne yanks a mouthy young whippersnapper off his horse and shoves him down into a big mud puddle.  “It’s time you learned to respect your betters,” the Wayne character snarls at the smart-ass kid.

Generally speaking, Americans don’t believe they have any betters.  We’re not intimidated by the rich and powerful.  (After all, we plan to be rich and powerful ourselves someday.) 

When our so-called betters try to throw their weight around and get away with something they shouldn’t, we call them out for it.

That’s what John Fogarty did in “Fortunate Son,” which he said was about David Eisenhower – who was the grandson of one President and the son-in-law of another one.  

The sons of the rich and powerful – like Eisenhower – always seemed to be able to find a way to avoid the draft, and the working-class families whose sons were sent to fight (and sometimes die) in Vietnam didn’t like that one little bit.

Eisenhower may have avoided being sent to Vietnam, but he did serve three years in the U.S. Navy (most of which he spent in the Mediterranean on a guided-missile cruiser).

As for Fogerty, he managed to avoid the draft by getting into an Army Reserve unit.  He was stationed stateside for the entirety of his six-month tour of duty.

So maybe Fogerty’s scorn for Eisenhower and all the other “fortunate sons” who knew how to game the system and stay out of harm’s way was a bit hypocritical – that’s what he did, after all.  But being full of sh*t is another quintessential American character trait.  

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Here’s a lightly-edited excerpt from my original 2010 post about “Fortunate Son”:

“Fortunate Son” is near-perfect two-minute-and-twenty-second work of art.  The words, the music, and the performance are all just right.  (Everyone and their brother has covered the song, but there’s nothing like the original.)

Most importantly, the attitude of this song is just right.  John Fogerty is pissed off at the powers that be, and he’s not afraid to let everyone know it.  That attitude makes it not only a quintessential rock-and-roll song, but also a very patriotic song – the Founding Fathers had some issues with the powers that be as well. . . . 

I remember my mother expressing exactly the same sentiment expressed in the lines quoted at the beginning of this post when I was a kid.  (People around here say “garage sale” or “yard sale,” but my mother always said “rummage sale.”)

It may have been possible to cheat on your personal property taxes back in the day by hiding your more valuable possessions when the tax assessor made his yearly visit to your house, although I doubt that many people were able to get away with very much.  But my mother was convinced that the richer people in town were beating the system one way or the other. 

My parents grew up during the Depression, and both of their families had barely enough to get by on.  Not surprisingly, they were somewhat resentful (envious?) of the “silver spoon” types.  

Also not surprising was their frugality when it came to spending their hard-earned money.  We lived in a very modest house – we all had to share one bathroom, which is a horror that my fortunate sons (and daughters) have never had to experience . . . .

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Click here to listen to “Fortunate Son.”

Click here to buy “Fortunate Son” from Amazon.

Rage Against the Machine – "Killing in the Name" (1992)

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!

(Am I coming through loud and clear?)

2 or 3 lines usually spends its September presenting the newest members of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME, while October is devoted to the newest class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME.

But not this year.  (2 or 3 lines is nothing if not unpredictable!)  

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Those of you who get up early enough to watch CBS’s Sunday Morning program know that program polled dozens of notable Americans earlier this year to create a list of what they’re calling the 250 most essential American songs.

Click here to see that list.

A lot of the allegedly “notable” Americans who were polled are notable mostly for their high degree of cluelessness.  While some of the songs that made the CBS list do belong there, the vast majority don’t.

To show CBS how it should have been done, 2 or 3 lines has sifted through hundreds of songs and picked the 13 that exemplify quintessential American attributes.  Each of my upcoming September and October posts this year will feature one of those songs – and trust me, my choices for the 2 OR 3 LINES QUINTESSENTIAL AMERICAN SONGBOOK pone the mostly sucky choices of those dumbasses that CBS talked to.

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A Supreme Court justice once admitted that he couldn’t intelligibly define exactly what constituted hard-core pornography, but that he knew it when he saw it.  

Like that justice, I know quintessentially American character traits when I see them.

First and foremost, Americans are independent to the point of orneriness – we don’t like to be told what to do!  When we’re kids, we resist doing what our parents and teachers tell us to do.  And when we’re adults, we resist doing what the government tells us to do.

(I have a friend who keeps telling me that when I say “the government,” what I’m really saying is “us” – that the American government is nothing more than the American people.  I beg to differ.) 

The 13 colonies didn’t like the British monarchy telling them what they could and couldn’t do, so they went to war in 1775 to achieve their independence.

King George III

The Americans who settled in Texas didn’t like the Mexican government telling them what they could and couldn’t do, so they revolted in 1835 to achieve their independence.

And the Southern states didn’t like the Northern states telling them what they could and couldn’t do, so they seceded from the Union in 1861 and started the Civil War to achieve their independence.

Hey, I didn’t say that every time Americans revolted against the government, it was a good thing.  I’m just saying that Americans don’t like being told what to do.

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No song better demonstrates this quintessentially American character trait than Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name,” which was released in 1992 on the band’s eponymous debut album.

It’s such a perfect choice that I can’t believe that the singer/songwriter Jelly Roll was the only one of the 90 actors, athletes, authors, businesspeople, comedians, filmmakers, journalists, musicians, and politicians that CBS surveyed picked “Killing in the Name” as one of their choices.  (We’ll have more to say about Jelly Roll in the next 2 or 3 lines.) 

Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha sings “F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!” 16 consecutive times on the record (which is why I typed that line 16 times at the beginning of this post).  If I had to pick one line from a song that captured the quintessence of what it means to be an American, that’s the line I would pick.

Given that, you might wonder why I’m featuring “Killing in the Name” in the first of my series 2 OR 3 LINES QUINTESSENTIAL AMERICAN SONGBOOK posts.  I don’t believe in saving the best for last, boys and girls – I believe in getting down to it right off the bat.  

If you tell me that I should have done things differently, you can probably guess what my reply to you would be:

Click here to listen to “Killing in the Name.”

Click here to buy “Killing n the Name” from Amazon.