Some things Griel Marcus missed while writing about I Wish I was A Mole In The Ground (A Song that I have been listening to lately, as an attempt to hadnle my depression)

1) Marcus claims that Lunsford who sings it wants to be "changed into a creature insignificant and despised" (lipstick traces, 16), and claims it as a beginning of mystical negation, moving thru Elvis, to Dylan, and of course the sex pistols. He misses that it’s a prison song, and a mole in the ground, is not insignificant in this metaphor. Its the only animal that could dig deep and efficiently enough to let him escape. The mole here, then, is a metaphor for hope, an escape from the Bend.

2) When Lunsford says, in those first few lines, root that mountain down, the way that he sings it, is Appalachian, so the end consonant is dropped. So root the mountain down, thru deliberate and specific work, sounds like rue that mountain down. Rue as in repent: feel remorse for; feel sorry for; be contrite about. I like that idea, implied or not, that the mourning itself, the worrying and the guilt, of being in prison, of being unable to even provide necessities can be so strong that it can take down one of those mountains, that seemed so eternal.

3) The reference to the Bend, later on in the song, is a reference to a prison in Tennessee, the song cannot be dated from this, because folksongs add or subtract details, and the big red box often retains the most commercial, or most expected reading. Having it be a prison song makes it part of a recognized genre, but also a mystical exploration of transfiguration into something painfully literal. That’s why I like to think of it as not Bend but Bin, the Bin, “with the Rough and Rowdy Men, “ because the next words make a little more sense. Being in the Bin sounds like being in a chain gang or a hollow hiding spot, or something hidden or metallic, something where men told secrets and stories about women. It reminds me of the Last Supper, which seemed to be the first place where those stories took place.

4) Marcus talks about “an almost absolute negation, at the edge of pure nihilism, a demand to prove that the world is nothing, a demand to be next to nothing…” (Lipstick Traces, 16). But that’s not what the song says. Every time he wants to be something, a mole in the ground, a lizard in the sun, escape from the railroad men, he wants something larger for himself. The mole wants liberation (from the Bend prison, but for all men everywhere), a lizard in the spring because he wants finally to “hear his daughter sing”, and because the railroad men are literally out for his blood. Is it nihilism to want to escape those who are destroying you?

5) The railroad men, “they'll kill you when he can/
Drink up your blood like wine”. He sings the song low and steady, so every word is enunciated. Every word is spoken. I wonder if he hears the railroad, or if they didn’t provide him work, or what makes such a clear, vampiric image. But it is not only a vampiric image. The whole song (and I know that I say everything is about Jesus, but keep w. me) is so holy, because it traces the parables. The mole is the meek, its small but it inherits its mountain. The lizard basking in the sun, are the lilies of the field: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:24–33 (KJV)) The workingman, here becomes the saviour, but of what? Is it just of his own martyrdom, like when in Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash sings: “I hear that train coming, Its rolling down the bend, I’m stuck in Folsom Prison, But that train keeps rolling, down to San Antoine”

6) The problem is, that he is dying for someone, or escaping for someone, or wanting to be that lizard for someone. Marcus starts his essay on the song, saying “It was an account of everyday mysticism, a man dropping his plow, settling onto the ground, pulling off his boots, and summoning wishes he will never fulfill.” It is an account of every day mysticism, a man in the pen or the bin or the bend (that’s why it reminds me mightily of Johnny Cash, the Bend being what you cannot see beyond, and maybe what reminds Marcus of Elvis: “Train train, comin round, round the bend/Train train, comin round the bend/Well it took my baby, but it never will again”). A large portion of the song is about him wanting to buy a shawl for his lover (Smith id’s her as Kimby, other lyrics say Tippy, Marcus doesn’t mention her name at all). He has 90 dollars (in 1924); the immortal shawl that would make everything right was 100 bucks. He was arrested before he had the chance to collect that extra ten dollars. But the shawl was ever beyond his means, like the 16-coach train was ever beyond the bend, and Folsom Prison will never move those tracks.
7) Then the song is about escape. It is not about death, or obliterating the self, of anything else that seems hip now. It is about hope, even though hope will never be achieved. It is about praying for redemption and that extra ten bucks, for the mountain to come to Mohammed even knowing it won’t. It’s for a woman to love you, even in prison (of self, and of literal prisons.)

8) I’ve in the hospital of late, because I wanted to kill myself, and now I want to be that mole in the ground. Not because of self-destruction or suicidal tendencies. Those have passed, but because the mole ever blind, keeps sensing. He digs tunnels, makes passageways, seeks the light and seeks to escape from the ground, a small creature moving large earth. I want to be a lizard on the wall, because like the lilies of the fields, I am reminded that the sun shines on all of god’s children, and I want that extra ten bucks, because maybe things might be a bit better. Maybe Kimby will stay.