Music Nerds! I Need Your Help

I know this is a dorky thing to wonder, but I’ve got it fixed in my brain now, so here it is. You know Alan Jackson? He sings “Mercury Blues,” in which is contained the line “gal I love, stole her from a friend, he got lucky stole her back again.”

This is a cover. The original is K. C. Douglas’s “Mercury Blues” (sometimes called “Mercury Boogies”), which dates from 1949. He sings “girl I love I stole from a friend, the fool got lucky stole her back again.”

Robert Johnson, in ’36, in “Come On in My Kitchen,” sings “the woman I love, took from my best friend, some joker got lucky, stole her back again.”

Then, back in ’31, Skip James, in “Devil Got My Woman,” sings “The woman I love took off for my best friend, but he got lucky, stole her back again.”

I can see why people borrow the shit out of that line, it’s great. But I wonder if you know of any instances of it older that James’s?

Blah-terday Day

My parents came through on their way back from Florida, where they seem to have had an awesome time. They took the Butcher with them so that he could get my mom’s car. This is an incredibly generous thing they’re doing for him–giving him mom’s car–and it’s going to make  our lives much easier. But while Dad and I were alone for a brief second, I learned the real reason this is happening–it gives my dad a way to keep my mom from driving without having to fight with her about it.

Her eyesight just is not good. To put it mildly. It’s funny. He can be such an asshole when it’s not needed, but he can’t just say to her “You can’t drive any more, Betty. You’re a danger to yourself and others and I’m worried whenever you’re on the road.” Even though she must suspect that, since, whenever they go anywhere together, she never drives, and she’s letting him give the Butcher her car.

Still, I feel bad for her. She’s bound to live forever, like my grandma, but my grandma has a lot more independence than my mom’s going to be able to have, just by virtue of the fact that my grandma can see.

My dad says he feels she can drive well enough to take him to the hospital if there’s an emergency. But if they have to then transfer him someplace, he hopes I’ll be able to come up and drive her around.

I don’t know. It broke my heart.

I went to Lowe’s this morning looking for something to keep my peonies upright, like a tomato cage, but shorter, and the guy told me no such thing existed, that people were just coming in and getting small tomato cages. I was like “I’m going to invent the peony cage and make a million dollars!” But then we went to look at stakes to tie them up to instead and there, in fact, were exactly what I was going to invent, hanging by the stakes.

So much for my million dollars.

But I also noticed that the lilacs have new growth down by their roots, new shoots coming out of the ground. And that’s very nice.

That’s about all the gardening I’m going to get done this weekend, unless the weather rapidly improves tomorrow. I’ll be spending today working on the book.

Edited to add: Someone on Amazon is selling white sage seeds. I’m going to try to get some up. I’m not sure where I’ll put them once they get up, but I’m going to try to cultivate them.