Revisiting The D Chronicles - (Men): Betcha...

"Betcha think this song is about you... don't you... don't you?" - Carly Simon

Ever hear a song and so completely identify with it that automatically it is about you. Well guess what? It isn't. I think that this idea is captured best by the song "Killing me softly" harmonized so eloquently by the lovely Roberta Flack (AND the marvelous lauren hill didn't hurt a damn thing with her cover. FABULOUS!) The song tells the story of a woman in the audience unknown to the performer. enraptured. embarrassed. experiencing. in so many words believing that his song was telling her story. its odd that people are so similar and yet so different. how their stories are connected but unite them through common experience. Have you ever shared a story with a person, stranger or familiar, and felt connected by the experience? What did you give and take from that exchange? enjoy the story. kisses. m.

Deal.
(3-12-11)

Just another night with another song on the old piano for another tear in a warm glass of bourbon for good ol Kansas and he was just about certain it would be his last. And with a little luck he might be right.

Kansas Beauregard Watson was a blues man and he played the blues night or day as far back as he could remember. For you see, dear old Kansas had a reason to play them blues. Everything that could have happened to a man happened to Kansas.

Dear old Kansas Beauregard wasn’t a bad fellow but he couldn’t help that his luck was always running out. It certainly ran out when he lost his job. Working in a Coal Mine was hardly a job that he enjoyed but it had kept food on the table. Then the luck ran out when his old lady left him for another man. Without any money it was inevitable that she’d leave. And sure as the sun rises she left him with a son that wasn’t his. What a beautiful boy his son Alabama was. It was a damn shame that boy wasn’t his cause he could play the blues just as grand as Kansas.

Some families pass down businesses. Others pass down money. Kansas passed down both the best thing and worst thing he knew to that boy. The blues and his bad luck. Blood or not that boy got every ounce of soul from his daddy Kansas and there wasn’t anything that could be changed by that. You see what is a man without a legacy? And Kansas sure as hell had a legacy in his music albeit came on account of his luck running so deeply bad.

From the time he was a small boy Kansas could tickle those ivories like he had a thousand stories to tell and that didn’t sit right with his old man. You see, his daddy was a preacher man and those blues didn’t much agree with him when his son played them. The Preacher Watson cursed the small boy the same as his mother. Like her son, the Lady Beauregard had the touch of a siren song that told a thousand tales of sorrow. The good ol preacher man had the lord on his side to remind them both it was the work of the devil that fueled their souls with song. Well it wasn’t the good lord wishing them luck when the Preacher Watson threw them out of his house. Along the way wasn’t easy for Lady Beauregard and her boy Kansas. And there wasn’t a day that went by that his mama didn’t apologize to Kansas for their life.

Leaving the burden of misfortune upon another soul was unbearable for Kansas Beauregard. And he sought out any way that he could to lift that curse from his boy Alabama. High and low he’d ask anyone for the answers to the problem that stood unsolved. Until that solution came to him one night right as he was closing out one more song of woe.

One could hardly blame Kansas for wanting to turn around his luck when that stranger walked in with an offer he couldn’t refuse.

The man came in when the rest of the usual suspects were calling it in for the night. He wasn’t dressed like the other characters. The cut of his suit matched his smile. Smooth and neat. His hair wasn’t too much notice with a bit of a curl. And when he spoke to the bartender his voice boomed across the entire place. The man took his seat, which from where Kansas sat tickling the ivories wasn’t too much distance away.

With a nod and a sip of his drink he encouraged the piano man to keep going.

Just as soon as he’d finished the song the man approached him. Silver tongue and smooth he dropped his offer before Kansas. A strange request it was but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be obliged. Fortune and fame would be bestowed upon him. His son Alabama would enjoy a life of ease and comfort and someday follow in his footsteps with a legacy of good luck. And all of it for only the price of a song.

According to the stranger he couldn’t seem to live without the sound of the blues. One more he told Kansas. Play them for me one more time tonight and this gift is yours. Kansas couldn’t see the harm in it, so he obliged the man with his song.

Some will tell you that the devil ain’t a smooth talking good looking character. Others will tell you that he’s nothing like the lord. Well from what Kansas could tell all those folks were wrong about what they said about that fellow. From the moment that fellows deal rolled off the tongue, Kansas knew in his mind there was only one character he was dealing with, the devil himself. And that didn’t matter the slightest bit to him.

And he played.

The Lady Beauregard often told Kansas to watch out for that silver-tongued man. She told him just like a warning not to take any heed in his words. But good old Kansas had lived a long enough life filled with misfortune trailing after him. A blues man has the blues, and Kansas lived and breathed his fair share of them. At the time that man rolled in with his offer, Kansas only had one thing that mattered to him most, his son. Blood or not, Alabama deserved a better life than what he could give. Bad luck and blues wasn’t what he wanted for the boy, so Kansas did what he thought was right. He played that man another song.

Now some might say that Kansas ran out of luck that night when he made that deal with the devil. Others will remember Kansas Beauregard Watson as a great blues man that caught a bit of luck that night when he left a legacy of sound in one song that would carry on. For on that night, with one more song and one more drink of bourbon, Kansas Beauregard Watson gave that silver-tongued man a bit of his blues for the last time.