OurGirl: I'll Fly Away

for some reason, as i read morgan's blog, this song was playing in my head. i've been singing it this week because, old glory, when your back is to the wall, simple sweet songs about rising above your tribulations is powerfully comforting. morgie and i both have the wild eye wary stare-ies about us, but its only for two more weeks. after that, to quote the movie "gettsyburg"

its in gawd's hands naw.

the good professors shall see we receive our just rewards, gentlemen. quick step, my morgan. lets give them the cold steel of our determination!

which, have you seen that movie? gettsyburg is a favorite of my husband and mine. we howl at martin sheen's hammy southern accent as he plays general lee:

General Robert E. Lee: [Lee holds up his hand to silence Stuart] Perhaps you misunderstood my orders? Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Well, sir... this must be made *very* clear. You, sir, with your cavalry, are the eyes of this army. Without your cavalry, we are made blind. That has already happened once. It must never, *never* happen again.

you have blinded, me, suh! blinded me! poor jeb stuart in that scene! even though its shot really dark, jeb's beard looks awfully pasted on. we giggle that there were so many faux beards in that film the prop department had run out of the good beards when they got to jeb and just threw something together to shoot the scene. we also cheer chamberlain on during pickett's charge:

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: [Chamberlain is addressing his junior officers before the Confederate assault on Little Round Top] Gentlemen... the 83rd Pennsylvania, 44th New York, and 16th Michigan will be moving in to our right. But if you look to our left, you will see that there is no one there. It's because we're the end of the line. The Union army stops here. We are the flank. Do you understand, gentlemen? We cannot retreat. We cannot withdraw. We are going to have to be stubborn today. So, you put the boys in position, you tell them to stay down. Pile the rocks up high; get the best protection you can. I want the reserve pulled up about 20 yards. This is sloping ground, it's good ground. If you have any breakthroughs, if you have men wounded, if you have a hole in the line, you plug it with the reserve. How are we fixed for ammunition?
Capt. Ellis Spear: Sir, I think about 60 rounds per man.
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: That's good. 60 rounds. I think - I... yes, that's adequate. Any questions?
Young 20th Maine Officer: Colonel... seems to me the fighting's on that side of the hill.
Older 20th Maine Officer: Yep. Seems to me that we're the back door. Everything's goin' on at the front door.
[all but Chamberlain laugh]
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: Well, gentlemen, that hill is steep. It's rocky. It's bare. To come straight up it is impossible. No. The Reb army is going to swing around. It's gonna come up through that notch right over there. It'll move under the cover of trees, try to get 'round the flank. And gentlemen... *we* are the flank. Gentlemen.
[he salutes, and all the others return it]
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: God go with you.

god go with us, morgie. we are the flank. we cannot retreat. we cannot withdraw. we are going to have to be stubborn today. arm your keyboards and write like the wind!

enCOURAGEment can be effective, but at times, nothing suffices like comfort. i think that's why i'm drawn to stripped down, hooky music like "i'll fly away." another song i sing sometimes is "how can i keep from singing?" sometimes i listen to bluegrass/gospel music. check out "geographical oddity" located in the right hand column.

but when i really need comfort i pull out frank sinatra & antonio jobim's gem from 1967. this isn't brash full of himself frank. this is the only frank i've heard that i like—a quiet, sincerely intimate, pared-down frank—and, the only frank i'm interested in. blame it all on jobim. frank does, complaining in the liner notes how jobim kept making him sing slower and slower. i'm glad frank caved and let it happen. there is only ten songs on this cd, but each fits into the other, hand in soft glove. in many songs, i feel like i can take on that persona and sing those songs like my own. in this recording, though, i always feel like this man is singing to me. like irving berlin's "change partners":

Must you dance
every dance
with the same fortunate man?
You have danced with him since the music began.
Won't you change partners and dance with me?

Must you dance
quite so close
with your lips touching his face?
Can't you see
I'm longing to be in his place?
Won't you change partners and dance with me?

Ask him to sit this one out.
While you're alone,
I'll tell the waiter to tell
him he's wanted on the telephone.

You've been locked
in his arms
ever since heaven-knows-when.
Won't you change partners and then,
you may never want to change partners again.

i hear it and i'm holly golightly—fabulously, desireably intoxicating and sophisticated!—and there are warm lips brushing my ear as the equally fabulously, desireably intoxicating and sophisticated! unknown man murmurs the song in my ear as we dance, of course!

darling, can you smell the estrogen? its perfectly palpable!

"You know what's wrong with you, Miss whoever-you-are? You're chicken. You've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, 'Okay. Life's a fact. People do fall in love. People do belong to each other.' Because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness. You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well Baby, you're already in that cage -- you built it yourself. And it's not bounded on the west by Tulip, Texas or on the east by Somaliland. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself."