![]() The moaning now comes from a wounded sexual animal, a primordial sound that comes from a place where Wolf has no words to say what he’s feeling so we only his voice, guttural and shaking, “ Whoo hoo, whoo hoo.” In the next verse, Wolf switches the train for his woman: In an interview, Wolf said he grew up listening to, among others, Jimmie Rodgers and he sought to imitate Singing Brakeman’s yodel, only his came out as a howl and that did Wolf just fine. (Johnny Cash sang about the same train in “Folsom Prison Blues.”) He moans over his fate, a moan full of anger, loneliness and darkness. Imagine this big man bent low with crops and off in the distance he hears the train, or sitting alone at night, the sound of the train rising, the “smokestack lightning.” That train is gold, freedom, the world passing him by cause he’s stuck in the darkness of Mississippi. Wolf says he learned all he needed when working the fields of Mississippi, where he was born and grew up. In the first verse, the singer calls out: One can ask exactly what the song is about even as the grunts and howls of Wolf convey all you need to know. Like many great songs, “Smokestack Lightning” contains great mystery. Men be careful cause there’s always the chance for trouble. Women be careful cause the Wolf’s hard to resist. The music shakes your foundation, rattles your walls and makes you quiver in fearful joy. It’s backed by the one of the best blues bands ever, drums and bass working together, Hubert Sumlin’s guitar as rough and ready as Wolf’s voice. The voice comes from someone who’s taken beatings and given them out too someone who’s known love and been betrayed by love, someone who knows raw sex of Biblical proportions. Wolf’s voice rises from somewhere deep within, it scrapes, growls, stretches and punches it’s full of broken stones and smashed metal, heartache and sinew. Gaze upon Howlin’ Wolf in all his raging glory, six foot six and three hundred pounds, eyes wide as hubcaps and shining bright as headlights, mouth like a junkyard dog, smiling like a man about to have his way. Imagine sitting in a small dark club on the Southside of Chicago. It’s sick.You can listen to the original recording here and see a live performance from 1964 here. But Johnny depp is a malignant narcissist, a man, and wealthy as all get out. Vilified and not believed, regardless of what any abuse survivor could recognize as a fellow survivor instantly. While the last thing survivors need is more blame, our society supports a narrative that blames the objectively innocent party because the blatantly guilty party has spent their entire lives fabricating a persona and we’re just being human, and human psychology is quite counterintuitive especially in the context of trauma. Never actually understand, even if they try, because all they see is you, on fire, screaming about the arsonist that no one ever sees, and who has been spreading lies about your alleged mental instability, deceptive personality, etc. Anyways, I especially relate to her midnights becoming afternoons, complex PTSD often leads to this phenomenon, whether due to purposeful sleep deprivation by the abuser, or just hyper vigilance associated with the PTSD, along with the fear of facing people, especially your loved ones, who funny how you say the words domestic violence, abuse, abuse survivor and boom the subject changes. The abuser has no anxieties, no emotional pain, or salience/memory for that matter, so the survivor appears to be the crazy one, obsessed with the abuse and that buzzword that seems to ignite arguments about diagnosing people without a degree, etc. I believe this is another amazingly on point and nuanced commentary on the insanity that follows emotionally abusive relationships. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. ![]() ![]() He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. ![]() “I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. “Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. ![]()
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