Free Form Outline for Papa Was a Rodeo…


Original:

1. 15 seconds starting
2. twisted point of view
3. who is mike, what gender is mike
4. the coyness, you’ve made it pretty clear what you like
5. the causal sexuality, the desire for bar room back room fuck
6. or is it something else
7. the kiss you puckered for me
8. plug it with a beer
a. first phallic signifaction
9. Papa was a rodeo
a. Not part of a rodeo, not a piece of the rodeo, but actually rodeo itself the personifiaciton of rodeo
b. The idea that identity was so infused
c. Ideas of transference, the power of parentage, et. al
d. Papa was a rodeo/mama was a rock and roll band wrt the Leonard cohen song
e. The brokeback scene, buckle bunnies, groupies, instability
10. mama was a rock and roll band
a. not a country band
b. away from the domestic
c. how common was the idea of mama, etc
d. the was questions again
e. can we make the argument that this was the second phallic signifaction
11. “play guitar and rope a steer/home was anywhere with diesal gas/love was a truckers stand
a. complications
b. he is in the middle of a gender non spec. seduction, he is talking about his parenting, explaining how he would like to stay, but cant—he has talked about who his parents are, how they affected him, but his role as a drifter becomes mythological, in that we don’t know anything of him before lets say 6
c. id/mirror stage/etc
d. the idea of truck stops as liminal places
e. the travellign trouboudour schtick
f. what is a truckers stand
i. literal defition
ii. last stand
iii. stand by your man
12. never stuck around long enough for a one night stand
a. does that mean that its all hand jobs at truck stops
b. truck stops as places for casual sex
c. or does that mean that there is a purity here,
i. asexuality and the cowboy
ii. celibacy and the cowboy
iii. cowboy as truckdriver
iv. Ie in the sense that I have too much to do, my tasks are too great, and my training as well, leads me to not have sex at all
v. Ie slut anthem or something else.
13. is he warning his paramour off, or his he seducing, what games are they playing .
14. semi-long sections o guitars, like lacunae, like pauses for reponses that do not come, like something stranger and less there.
15. the light refleting off the mirror ball/like a thousand seeking eyes/make me think that I should not be here at all…
a. a strange reference to the apropticon
b. what is he afraid of
c. where is here, why should he not be here
d. half ay thru the song and no specific geographic locator
i. and the mythic west
ii. na dhte lonliness contained therein
iii. and the implication that perhaps this is not a physical space, but an emotional one
iv. long tradtion of great traveling/trucker country that is v. atuned to geography, that knows where it is, and mentions names of cities, towns, highways (ie girl on the billboard, ive been everywhere, king of the road, find others)
16. everyminute someone dies/what are we doing in this dive bar/how can you live in a place like this/why don’t you get into my car/and ill take you away/ill take that kiss now/but…
a. unreliable narrative
b. unsure who is talking, whos car
c. why do I assume this to be a trucking song
d. it’s a great a/b/a/b call and response, vibe, but its merritt talking to himself, over thiese reptiive, turgid guitars
17. The shock of the last verse
18. 55 years later/and weve had the romance of the century/after years wrestling gators/ive still felt like crying…
a. the gender changes in the last chorus
b. its Claudia, and she sings, in a female voice, and we finally realize that there is a matched pair, and in all of the excesses of this, the lonlieness matches
c. jack and ennis moment
d. but also girl from the high country, and patsy montanna getting her own love
e. some interesting self relefexivity in the last little bit, in the last lines, (they sing together, songs entwine)
19. What A conincede Papa was a Rodeo.

Kelly Hogan

1. More Heteronormative, cause it’s a boy singing to a girl (is stepin playing a character, which gender is he speaking in, why do we assume its queer.
2. She emphasizes different parts of the text—she is more concise in her phrasing, of lines like I leave early in the morning, I wont be back till next year
3. When she says maybe, it seems less ambiguous, and beer bottle seems less like a replacement for cock
4. There is an elelment of biography, of Kelly being part of a rock and roll band
5. It’s a softer, less obnixous version, but its quicker, half a minute shorter .
6. The lacunae, the elements of musical intercession…
7. Everyminute someone dies, she deemphazies this, she doesn’t spend as much time lingering on it as she could.
8. Its truckers hand, not stand
9. She lengthens the vowels sometimes,
10. There, the first lacunae, the first instrumental break
11. What are the implications of her assuming this text, wrt gender?
12. Wrestling gators as metaphor
13. The dude comes in, and its shortened in, the third act marriage is not accompoined by some weird twisting in the second verse
14. I keep thinking, about this a roaming song, about a seeking out desire and sexuality, instead of watiting for it to come, in that way, it seems against the narrative flow of female country, with few exceptions, is a game of domesticity, her claiming this song, her claiming the raw desire, the strangeness of the road, the exhaustion and the sadness, is a different kind of raw desire et al then stand by yr man, coal miners daughter, I fall to pieces, I gave my wedding dress away, I want to a cowboy’s sweetheart, etc—even the fuck you Loretta songs (Rated X, Fist City ) is about protecting territory on yr own geographic space.