Lovely piece Richard. An album I love to this day is Richard Buckner's Bloomed. One of the great break-up albums. A favourite track is 'Mud'. The whole record is his Mud on the Tracks!
Thanks Martin. I listened to Bloomed while I was putting this piece together and thought about including 'Mud'. I didn't know where to go with it, though. His wordplay is so rich and allusive, but I can never get a grip on it (that's a good thing, one of the reasons Iove him). I found out about Richard Buckner through you, of course, one of may many recommendations I continue to be grateful for.
Another fascinating deep dive that starts in one spot, but like your daily run, it eventually leads us through many paths of thought only to return full circle. As I read it, I kept thinking of Mark Lanegan's thick and brooding "Bleeding Muddy Water" off his 'Blues Funeral' LP.
Very much enjoyed following along on the journey of this, thank you. Started it with the words from a silly song in my head — ”mud, mud, glorious mud,” — and ended it with a head full of new (to me), music, and of Ponge, and Borges, and ”mudlarking cyberspace” (wonderful), and the sight and sound of swans walking in mud. Am fairly sure that if you hadn't highlighted the sound of the swans' footsteps I never would have noticed it while watching the videos— such a lovely thing, to share the gift of one's attention so that others pay attention too.
Agree with those who think that the moccasin in the song is the snake. Definitely a North American thing, but the word isn't obvious even to us if we're not from a region that has them. When I read the lyrics I paused on the word because I wasn't sure: my mind mostly said ”it's a snake, isn't it?”, but some smaller part said, ”no, it's a kind of plant.” Was confused enough to look it up — turns out it's both, as well of course as the footware. So lots of room for confusion there.
I actually thought that the ”glorious mud” song might be a North American thing too, since adults would break into it every now and again when I was a kid. But looked it up later in the evening yesterday, when I was sure that it wouldn't displace the beautiful elements of this piece, and found this delightful video on youtube with the people who wrote it (who are as unknown to me as moccasin snakes rightly are to a European): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4zpDF3Py7r8&pp=ygUZbXVkIG11ZCBnbG9yaW91cyBtdWQgc29uZw%3D%3D
Thank you for reminding me of Flanders and Swann's 'Hippopotamus'! I really should have remembered that as a song I would hear when I was younger, though, like you, sung by people around me rather than from the F&S recordings. It would sit nicely alongside Ivor Cutler's silly mud song.
Their hippo-pot-AY-mus can claim to be 'no ig-nor-AY-mus', but unfortunately I can't, as is evident from my moccasins blunder. If this piece gets developed for the book I'm working on, I'll take the corrections gratefully into account.
It's all in where one is… I feel no shame in not having heard of Flanders and Swann 😊, though loved watching them in this video. Book project sounds intriguing.
Regarding your initial analysis of part of Guy Clark's (and Buddy Mondlock's) song "Mud," I think they were actually referencing the heron and the water moccasin, and not some indirect Native American reference down by the swampy waters (where the cottonmouth -- another name for the moccasin in Texas -- waits patiently in the waters for their eventual prey).
Guy is long gone, but maybe Buddy could weigh in on this....
Thanks James. Yes, I clearly got the wrong end of the stick with the moccasin line (see other comments). I'm grateful to those who've corrected me and will make the necessary changes if I develop this piece up for the book I'm working on. In the meantime, I'm considering deleting or striking through my reading of the song here as its potentially distracting from what I was trying to do (and I'm embarrassed by my ignorance being shown up!), though I generally try to avoid major post-publication tweaks. Sometimes, I like to approach songwriters for insights into lines, but here I was after my own subjective interpretation, however off that was.
This has all got me thinking about lines in Townes Van Zandt's 'Two Girls': "Now it's cold down on the bayou / They say it's in your mind / But the moccasins are treadin' ice / And leavin' strange designs". I'd always thought footprints, but now I'm not so sure.
Ah yes, "Two girls." Again I've always believed that was another reference to the cottonmouth (water moccasin), since that ending part of the song addresses a very odd cold snap in the Deep South....where the water snakes would indeed be "leavin' strange designs" on the ice they almost never have to navigate. It's actually a clever take on "treading water," imagining a water viper struggling to tread a confounding new medium.
Loved your muddy meanderings and finding of connections between all these disparate sources and images. Like being inside someone else's brain as they make sense of things in ways I never would.
Is the riverbed uncaring and inanimate? The more I read about 'matter,' the more I wonder.
Thanks, Ellen. Meanderings connections are what I'm going after. I'm also trying to present some of the arguments that go on inside my brain. In my more academic work, I'd probably never be as declarative as to say that the riverbed doesn't care. I'd use a lot more hedging language. A lot of the work I'm doing at the moment is influenced by the idea o 'vibrant matter' and the agency of objects (including songs). I tend to get quite speculative and then have arguments with myself, so something like 'the riverbed doesn't care' is the 'rational' part of my brain telling the speculative part off! Let's see which one wins as things progress.
Richard: I share your enthusiasm for Guy Clark, though not the "close reading" of the lyric, the result of a university experience in which Robbe-Grillet was required reading because every word and punctuation had essential meaning. (No, I said.) Anyway, the reference to "moccasins" is not likely a reference to Native American lore; a water moccasin is a poisonous snake that lives in swamps, ponds ... the muddy water...of the American south.
Thanks for the comment, Wayne. I disagree that I was offering a "close reading", though. My understanding of close reading is similar to what you're mentioning re Robbe-Grillet, a search for essential meaning. I wasn't offering that, but rather thoughts that flowed from listening to those lyrics again. Thoughts which, as you've pointed out, were doubtless inaccurate in terms of essential meaning. They were the meanings I took, and my mistakes. I'm grateful for you pointing out the error I've made with the moccasin reading (which I guess comes from not enough research and my non-American-South perspective). I feel a bit foolish but also content that I went with intuition rather than expertise. As I'll be writing about in upcoming post about my first year on Substack, I've become more interested in following trains of thought than offering expertise. That's a difficult shift to make for someone who is both an introvert and trained as an academic, and I won't always get it right.
I never argue with the author. Just wanted to find a graceful way to point out if Guy Clark was talking about “herons” in the same line as “moccasins” they were most likely mud snakes. I didn’t know what a heron looked like until I saw a few in St. Stephen’s park in Dublin a few years ago. I asked someone what kind of bird it was. They said “air-ohn.” I’m thinking what? What? I realized they were French tourists. Air-ohn=heron.
Happy to learn about the mud snakes, and I kind of wish I'd known before, partly to not look foolish but also because mud snakes would have fit in with so many other things I wanted to cover in this post. Oh well, it's all work in progress.
Lovely piece Richard. An album I love to this day is Richard Buckner's Bloomed. One of the great break-up albums. A favourite track is 'Mud'. The whole record is his Mud on the Tracks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XE_2PNbflQ
Thanks Martin. I listened to Bloomed while I was putting this piece together and thought about including 'Mud'. I didn't know where to go with it, though. His wordplay is so rich and allusive, but I can never get a grip on it (that's a good thing, one of the reasons Iove him). I found out about Richard Buckner through you, of course, one of may many recommendations I continue to be grateful for.
Not sure it fits thematically either, but it was the first song that sprang to mind as I was reading your piece. Hope you are well.
I’m well, thanks. Hope you are too.
Another fascinating deep dive that starts in one spot, but like your daily run, it eventually leads us through many paths of thought only to return full circle. As I read it, I kept thinking of Mark Lanegan's thick and brooding "Bleeding Muddy Water" off his 'Blues Funeral' LP.
Thanks, Michael. That Lanegan track is great.
Very much enjoyed following along on the journey of this, thank you. Started it with the words from a silly song in my head — ”mud, mud, glorious mud,” — and ended it with a head full of new (to me), music, and of Ponge, and Borges, and ”mudlarking cyberspace” (wonderful), and the sight and sound of swans walking in mud. Am fairly sure that if you hadn't highlighted the sound of the swans' footsteps I never would have noticed it while watching the videos— such a lovely thing, to share the gift of one's attention so that others pay attention too.
Agree with those who think that the moccasin in the song is the snake. Definitely a North American thing, but the word isn't obvious even to us if we're not from a region that has them. When I read the lyrics I paused on the word because I wasn't sure: my mind mostly said ”it's a snake, isn't it?”, but some smaller part said, ”no, it's a kind of plant.” Was confused enough to look it up — turns out it's both, as well of course as the footware. So lots of room for confusion there.
I actually thought that the ”glorious mud” song might be a North American thing too, since adults would break into it every now and again when I was a kid. But looked it up later in the evening yesterday, when I was sure that it wouldn't displace the beautiful elements of this piece, and found this delightful video on youtube with the people who wrote it (who are as unknown to me as moccasin snakes rightly are to a European): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4zpDF3Py7r8&pp=ygUZbXVkIG11ZCBnbG9yaW91cyBtdWQgc29uZw%3D%3D
Thank you for reminding me of Flanders and Swann's 'Hippopotamus'! I really should have remembered that as a song I would hear when I was younger, though, like you, sung by people around me rather than from the F&S recordings. It would sit nicely alongside Ivor Cutler's silly mud song.
Their hippo-pot-AY-mus can claim to be 'no ig-nor-AY-mus', but unfortunately I can't, as is evident from my moccasins blunder. If this piece gets developed for the book I'm working on, I'll take the corrections gratefully into account.
Thanks for your generous attention.
It's all in where one is… I feel no shame in not having heard of Flanders and Swann 😊, though loved watching them in this video. Book project sounds intriguing.
Loved your muddy deep dive, as always.
Regarding your initial analysis of part of Guy Clark's (and Buddy Mondlock's) song "Mud," I think they were actually referencing the heron and the water moccasin, and not some indirect Native American reference down by the swampy waters (where the cottonmouth -- another name for the moccasin in Texas -- waits patiently in the waters for their eventual prey).
Guy is long gone, but maybe Buddy could weigh in on this....
Thanks James. Yes, I clearly got the wrong end of the stick with the moccasin line (see other comments). I'm grateful to those who've corrected me and will make the necessary changes if I develop this piece up for the book I'm working on. In the meantime, I'm considering deleting or striking through my reading of the song here as its potentially distracting from what I was trying to do (and I'm embarrassed by my ignorance being shown up!), though I generally try to avoid major post-publication tweaks. Sometimes, I like to approach songwriters for insights into lines, but here I was after my own subjective interpretation, however off that was.
This has all got me thinking about lines in Townes Van Zandt's 'Two Girls': "Now it's cold down on the bayou / They say it's in your mind / But the moccasins are treadin' ice / And leavin' strange designs". I'd always thought footprints, but now I'm not so sure.
Ah yes, "Two girls." Again I've always believed that was another reference to the cottonmouth (water moccasin), since that ending part of the song addresses a very odd cold snap in the Deep South....where the water snakes would indeed be "leavin' strange designs" on the ice they almost never have to navigate. It's actually a clever take on "treading water," imagining a water viper struggling to tread a confounding new medium.
Yes, a great image!
Loved your muddy meanderings and finding of connections between all these disparate sources and images. Like being inside someone else's brain as they make sense of things in ways I never would.
Is the riverbed uncaring and inanimate? The more I read about 'matter,' the more I wonder.
Thanks, Ellen. Meanderings connections are what I'm going after. I'm also trying to present some of the arguments that go on inside my brain. In my more academic work, I'd probably never be as declarative as to say that the riverbed doesn't care. I'd use a lot more hedging language. A lot of the work I'm doing at the moment is influenced by the idea o 'vibrant matter' and the agency of objects (including songs). I tend to get quite speculative and then have arguments with myself, so something like 'the riverbed doesn't care' is the 'rational' part of my brain telling the speculative part off! Let's see which one wins as things progress.
Richard: I share your enthusiasm for Guy Clark, though not the "close reading" of the lyric, the result of a university experience in which Robbe-Grillet was required reading because every word and punctuation had essential meaning. (No, I said.) Anyway, the reference to "moccasins" is not likely a reference to Native American lore; a water moccasin is a poisonous snake that lives in swamps, ponds ... the muddy water...of the American south.
Thanks for the comment, Wayne. I disagree that I was offering a "close reading", though. My understanding of close reading is similar to what you're mentioning re Robbe-Grillet, a search for essential meaning. I wasn't offering that, but rather thoughts that flowed from listening to those lyrics again. Thoughts which, as you've pointed out, were doubtless inaccurate in terms of essential meaning. They were the meanings I took, and my mistakes. I'm grateful for you pointing out the error I've made with the moccasin reading (which I guess comes from not enough research and my non-American-South perspective). I feel a bit foolish but also content that I went with intuition rather than expertise. As I'll be writing about in upcoming post about my first year on Substack, I've become more interested in following trains of thought than offering expertise. That's a difficult shift to make for someone who is both an introvert and trained as an academic, and I won't always get it right.
I never argue with the author. Just wanted to find a graceful way to point out if Guy Clark was talking about “herons” in the same line as “moccasins” they were most likely mud snakes. I didn’t know what a heron looked like until I saw a few in St. Stephen’s park in Dublin a few years ago. I asked someone what kind of bird it was. They said “air-ohn.” I’m thinking what? What? I realized they were French tourists. Air-ohn=heron.
Happy to learn about the mud snakes, and I kind of wish I'd known before, partly to not look foolish but also because mud snakes would have fit in with so many other things I wanted to cover in this post. Oh well, it's all work in progress.