Song for Day 21 of a 4 Year Funeral - "Sister Mercy" by John Stewart

Day 21 - "Sister Mercy" by John Stewart

      A common reaction here is "WTF was that?"

      For starters, it is a uniquely American phenomenon.  It is the voice of a songwriter forced out of a brief retirement (he died at 68) in order to pay his beloved wife’s hospital bills.

     It is much more than that, though.

      In our Day 5 installment, "Hypersensitive Jester" we read the headline:

      Bill Maher Highlights Extent Of Opioid Abuse In Donald Trump-Voting States:  "Did you know that of the 14 states with the highest number of painkiller prescriptions per person, they all went for Trump?"

      Even without the issue of marijuana legalization/decriminalization, drugs played a significant role in deciding the 2016 election.  We Democrats don't discuss this often enough to establish a consensus but one cannot help wondering if we're on the wrong side of history here.

Songwriter John Stewart

      The song's substance and form are both fascinating.  The confusion is the speaker's, who is mixing three euphorias:  morphine, fantasy, and memory.  Since the American Civil War, at least, "sister mercy" has been a euphemism for narcotic analgesics.  In his delirium, this patient also refers to the nun treating him as "Sister Mercy", even as he dreams about her, and recalls his first lover.

      This is a "Cliché Collage", where undistinguished or familiar language is arranged with synergistic effect, creating art.  

"Hookers" by Marco Morales

Missing you again,
I embrace shallow graves.
Pale faces, doughlike breasts,
help me forget.


     Like the Marco Morales poem's "I embrace shallow graves", John Stewart's song, "Sister Mercy", adopts a "Filler and Killer" approach, where pedestrian lyrics support that one sparkling line:  the one where the patient imagines himself healthy enough to fulfill a promise to his caregiver: 

"...and I will take you dancing in the liquid desert heat." 

Lyrics:

Would you bring me Sister Mercy, yeah
If she is still in town
For it seems I lost directions
And I've always had them down
And I don't know where I'm going, yeah
And I don't know where I've been
Could you send me Sister Mercy, yeah
She's always been my friend
Always been my friend

She would bring me to the river, yeah
Where I could lay my head
And I would close my eyes
And remember what she said
She said nothing is forever, yeah
So grab it while you can
Find the dreams along the river
As they move across the land
Move across the land

In the summer in the Badlands, yeah
Where I once ran wild
She would take me to the river
As a mother takes a child
For the dreams along the river, yeah
Are the best, I understand
Sister Mercy and the river, yeah
They know how to treat a man
How to treat a man

And she knows it's not forever, yeah
And I'll soon be on my feet
And I will take her dancing, yeah
In the liquid desert heat
And I'll forget tomorrow, yeah
And most of yesterday
Sister Mercy and the river
They know how to get their way
Sister Mercy and the river
They always get their way
Always get their way

Would you bring me Sister Mercy, yeah
If she is still in town
For it seems I lost directions, yeah
And I've always had them down
And I don't know where I'm going, yeah
And I don't know where I've been
Could you send me Sister Mercy, yeah
She's always been my friend
Could you send me Sister Mercy, yeah
She's always been my friend


      Tomorrow, if interest warrants, we'll examine another kind of Cliché Collage:  the Referential (including the "Cadas" and the Hypertextual).

Links: 

Songs for a 4 Year Funeral