A singer and song-writer I enjoy listening to and have been to see loads of times, is Kevin Montgomery. I took one of his CDs in the car with me the other day and listened to it again, having not played it for a while. Having ‘a breather’ from things sometimes lets you see them from a different perspective, and this was the case with the ‘2:30 am’, a CD I had played, many, many,many times before. Kevin writes some amazing songs, usually with a story, which I like, and on this CD the second track is ‘Cherokee City’; it comes after ‘Tennessee Girl’ which is a song impossible not to dance to, even when driving!
Cherokee City starts with a strong rhythm and plunges straight into the narrative, a young singer song-writer out to seek his fortune, leaving the city and the girls who “are too rich and they’re way too pretty to give a second look to a long-haired rocker like me”. The fist verse are almost optimistic, the long-haired rocker comes from a working family, his grandfather was a stone-mason (how many songs do you know have the words ‘stone masonry’ in them, and how many writers are clever enough to effortlessly rhyme it with ‘family tree’?) The story continues with the boy getting a mindless job in a factory but then moving on, kissing his sweetheart Mary goodbye.
The song begins to change as the optimism begins to die, and the boy becomes crushed by his lack of success; Mary follows him and gets a job in a hair-dressers while he tries to get some recognition for his songs. Mary stands by him and passes his tapes to anyone she meets, trying to put him in touch with the ‘big shots’ she knows. Kevin s voice changes, slows becomes almost quietly despairing. The boy sadly wonders why Mary sticks with him, ‘picks him up when he’s down’. By the end of the song the boy seems utterly crushed and Kevin’s singing is melancholy to match his despair.
It is such a clever song, wonderful lyrics, marvellous melody, and beautiful and meaningfully sung.
Lois Elsden 