Inspecting a Jewel

I’ve always loved country and western music—up until about 1980, when it accelerated its slow slide into a derivative rock music style combined with predictable lyrics drawn from the unholy trio of alcohol, trucks and loose women. What I love about it more particularly is its ability to paint a complete emotional picture in under three minutes.

Today I’m going to put my money where my mouth is and look at one of the best examples of the genre, the song originally recorded by George Jones, titled She Thinks I Still Care.

The song was written in 1962 by two professional songwriters under contract to Jones’ record company: Dickey Lee and Steve Duffy. The song almost wasn’t recorded at all, as Jones was not impressed. “It’s got too many damn ‘just becauses’ in it,” he is reputed to have said. His second instinct served him well: the song went on to be a number one hit.

Let’s inspect the song, which consists of two verses, a bridge and then a final verse.

[First verse]
Just because I asked a friend about her
Just because I spoke her name somewhere
Just because I rang her number by mistake today
She thinks I still care

The first verse sets up the conceit of the song. His former partner has got it all wrong. She thinks he still cares about her, Clue one: he asked a friend about her. Clue two: he spoke her name somewhere. Clue three: he rang her number by mistake. These incidents are small enough to make it plausible that the misunderstanding is hers and that he really doesn’t care for her any more. But an ambiguity arises: is he perhaps just projecting his own feelings on to her through his description of her reaction?

[Verse 2]
Just because I haunt the same old places
Where the memory of her lingers everywhere
Just because I’m not the happy guy I used to be
She thinks I still care

Verse two ups the stakes, and begins to expose the flaws in his assertions that he doesn’t care about her anymore. He haunts the same old places. Her memory is everywhere. He’s not happy anymore. So we are left with a picture of an emotional wreck of a man who can’t bring himself—yet—to admit that he does still care for her, blaming it on her supposed misperception of him. Then comes the bridge.

[Bridge]
But if she’s happy thinking I still need her
Then let that silly notion bring her cheer
But how could she ever be so foolish
Oh where would she get such an idea

In the bridge, he increases the emotional stakes again. He purports to take pity on her, saying she is welcome to the delusion that he still cares. But it’s really an expression of self-pity. He can’t recognize the transparency of his feelings, and criticizes her for being foolish instead.

[Verse 3]
Just because I asked a friend about her
Just because I spoke her name somewhere
Just because I saw her then went all to pieces
She thinks I still care

The first two lines of the verse return to the semireasonable opening verse of the song, which then reaches its climax with his admission that he “went all to pieces” when he saw her, showing his “just because” protestations to be empty, and himself to be a troubled character who can’t even bring himself to admit how deeply he has felt about her.

That’s a complicated mess of emotional baggage to throw into a less than three minutes (actually two minute and 37 second) song. But it works, I’m not saying that She Thinks I Still Care is the best country song ever written: almost anything by Hank Williams or the Louvin Brothers would rank pretty high. But it is a jewel.

And these people who have also recorded the song would agree with me: among others, Anne Murray, Connie Francis, Del Shannon, Leon Russell, John Fogerty, James Taylor, Michael Nesmith, Glen Campbell, Merle Haggard , Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Cher.

Congratulations to Cher for making this column two weeks in a row!

Last week’s column about deep faking failed to note that there is a Canadian company [started by a University of Toronto dropout and conceived in a (legal) pot-inspired haze] called Wombo Studios Inc., that brings to the everyday computerist the means to convert still facial shoots into moving videos. So if you want to see the Mona Lisa mouthing a disco song, go find it on YouTube.

And while we’re ending this week’s column with a squib, I’ll add another one and congratulate my relative Sammy Jackson on winning a Juno last week for Jazz Vocal Album of the Year.