Photo by Ahmed Rizkhaan on Unsplash
I know that most of my posts are somewhat frivolous in nature and just sort of fun-loving, but today I want to raise awareness about an oft-forgotten phenomenon. A long-hidden danger lurking under the surface. A menace upon the human consciousness that needs to be discussed.
Today, I want us to talk about country music sequel songs.
No, really. This is a thing that exists.
While I know I may seem perfectly normal and well-balanced for everyday life, I’m actually a bit of an oddball when it comes to my taste in pop cultural absorption. I was quite literally raised on classic country music, and I spent many Saturday and Sunday nights listening to “Country Gold Saturday and Sunday Night” on WYAY 106.7.
After that station went defunct, I jumped ship over to the ever-glorious realm of Cox Media Group (hi, guys!) and tuned in to WNGC 106.1’s “Classic Country Saturday Night.” Fun fact, I still love hearing people mistakenly call in and request a song from Pete de Graaff and say how much they love listening to Country Gold Saturday night. Ha! Old people are funny.
Anyway, sequel songs. This is a real thing.
We all know what a sequel is, right? Hollywood has made sure that we are familiar with the concept, after all. If a movie is successful enough, or even if it isn’t, the executives who so flawlessly run the film industry immediately set to work pushing out a second excellent installment in the franchise. For the art, of course.
(I might have said a thing or two about sequels on this site: This one about Top Gun, this one about Ant-Man, this one and this one about Jurassic Park movies, this one about Marvel, and this one about Mary Poppins. And more! But I digress.)
So you might be wondering, then, how the concept of a sequel song makes any sense. After all, isn’t it a musician’s job to keep making new songs? Is every love song by an artist connected to the prior one?
Oh, no. No, no, my friend. It’s much deeper than that.
First and foremost, we have to acknowledge the reason why country music is susceptible to this particular phenomenon. Some of the biggest hits in country music history are story songs. Ballads, to the literary nerds out there. And what do all stories need?
That’s right! A sequel!
How many lives have you lived, Marty? How many?
Marty Robbins Re-Lives His Own Death
You could argue that sequels are most necessary when the main narrative still requires resolution.
But what could be more resolved than a story where the narrator dies at the end?
In the Marty Robbins classic “El Paso,” our crooning narrator sings of his love for a woman who dances in a saloon in the eponymous border town. The narrator is so smitten with Feleena that he ends up shooting another man for dancing with her.
Now cowboys are obviously known for settling disputes in the most reasonable of ways, but this time the narrator chose to flee. But his love for Feleena drew him back to town and he died for her love, giving his final breath as she held him in her arms.
Aaaaand…scene.
That’s it. It’s over. The end.
And yet…it isn’t?
So what makes our first sequel song, Marty’s simply named “El Paso City,” the absolute strangest is that this song proposes the bizarre argument, “What if Marty Robbins is actually the dead cowboy reincarnated?”
No, really. That’s the whole song.
The first verse is simple enough. Marty is singing about the song he made a global hit, giving a little wink and a nudge with the line, “I don’t recall who sang the song/ But I recall the story that I heard.”
The chorus is a pretty typical cowboy chorus with mentions of El Paso and the cowboy who died for love. Blah, blah. Although there is one odd note in there.
Observe! An AI Generated image of a Zombie Cowboy.
El Paso City, by the Rio Grande
I try not to let you cross my mind
But still I find there's such a mystery in the song
That I don't understand
Mystery, huh? What mystery? Dude gets shot and dies. That’s…that’s not a mystery. Are you concerned with who shot him? This ain’t CSI: El Paso, Marty. Chill.
The second verse gets pretty nutty pretty fast, though.
My mind is down there somewhere
As I fly above the badlands of New Mexico
I can't explain why I should know
The very trail he rode back to El Paso
Hold on, buckaroo. You’re not implying what I think you’re implying, right?
Can it be that man can disappear from life and live another time?
And does the mystery deepen
Cause you think that you yourself lived in that other time?
Nope. He is.
Listen, Marty. I love you. You’re my granddaddy’s favorite. Your music is great. And I know the 60s were a weird time for everybody, but…seriously? Also, rhyming time with itself is a rookie move. You can do better.
So if you’re ever sitting around and you need a fun piece of trivia to get a conversation going, you can tell people that Marty Robbins once wrote a song where he implied he was a reincarnated version of a character he wrote a song about. And as you throw your hands up, shout, “Honest truth!” and bask in the glow of everyone’s awe at your trivia prowess, they’ll all be thinking, “Who the heck is Marty Robbins?” Because most of your friends probably aren’t 80.
For my money, I would have much rather had a sequel to the song, “Big Iron.” Perhaps that’s why I pulled the Arizona Ranger from that song and put him in my book, Black Star, or the Desecration of Silver Gorge.
Just saying.
Everything goes in the sausage. Everything. (Image from JimmyDean.Com)
Jimmy Dean Grinds Up and Reconstitutes a Hit
I’m not sure which topic is stranger for a country song: Reincarnation or Resurrection.
Can you imagine if the Dixie Chicks wrote a song called “Earl Lives!” and performed it at the CMAs? That’d be something.
And yet, here we are.
Now resurrection is one of the oldest topics of storytelling, being utilized everywhere from comic books to Greek myth. And there was also that one time with Jesus, but I’m not about to compare Jesus to a Jimmy Dean character, so…let’s ignore that for the moment.
While he may be better known as the sausage king of the south, Jimmy Dean also wrote a few songs in his time. One of the biggest of his career was a little ditty about a big man, “Big Bad John.”
In his original hit, Dean sings about a very large man who scares everyone in his quaint mining town to death. They are literally afraid that he will punch them to oblivion if they cross him.
Somebody said he came from New Orleans
Where he got in a fight over a Cajun Queen
And a crashin' blow from a huge right hand
Sent a Louisiana fellow to the promised land, big John
For those keeping track at home, that’s now two men who’ve died in country songs for talking to the wrong woman. So if you ever happen to be going about your day and hear a twangy guitar as your background music, maybe just don’t talk to any women. For safety’s sake.
Now Big John’s story takes a surprising twist when the day comes that all miners fear. The mine caves in and a bunch of burly miners are crying in a pit in the ground because they know they’re about to die. Everyone except John, of course.
“Hey. You know that really big guy who is kinda temperamental and probably a killer on the run? Let’s go spend all day in a cramped space with him!” (Photo by Luca Maffeis on Unsplash)
Through the dust and the smoke of this man-made hell
Walked a giant of a man that the miners knew well
Grabbed a saggin' timber, gave out with a groan
And like a giant oak tree he just stood there alone, big John
(Big John, big John)
Big bad John (big John)And with all of his strength he gave a mighty shove
Then a miner yelled out, "There's a light up above"
And twenty men scrambled from a would-be grave
Now there's only one left down there to save, big John
Spoiler alert…John dies.
They try to go back down there after him, but they can’t. The mine belches gas and smoke, and they know he’s been buried in a pit that would’ve been all their graves.
It’s a somber song about one man’s heroic sacrifice and what it means to help your fellow man. The townspeople are so grateful that they place a marble monument in front of the mine memorializing this larger-than-life hero.
And how does Dean’s sequel go? In “The Cajun Queen,” a deranged Cajun woman rolls into town and puts a reverse Snow White on the dead guy to bring him back to life. It’s full of upbeat instruments and a happy little tune. And what’s the Cajun Queen’s reason for doing it?
Because he “moves” her. That’s the whole thing.
Nothing about the rewards for heroism or any of that nonsense. Not even a Shakespearean soliloquy about the power of never-ending love. She just sorta likes him.
Before putting this piece together, I also had no idea that the story of Big John continues! There’s a certified trilogy, the third song being “Little Bitty Big John” about their baby, and even an “unauthorized installment” by Dottie West talking about the Cajun Queen’s life before her magical lips resurrected her lover. This story has it all!
The more I read here, I’m starting to think that Big John might actually be a Marvel hero. Does anybody know what Wolverine was up to in 1961?
I was, of course, very moved to hear about his wife’s struggle with infertility and his epic journey to South America later in life. (Photo from e-WV.com)
Red Sovine and Minnie Pearl Combine to Show Just How Emotional Truck Stops Can Get
Trucking songs, man. Am I right?
There’s all kinds of trucking songs. Fast trucking songs, slow trucking songs, happy trucking songs, sad trucking songs, ghost story trucking songs. There’s even a trucking song about trucking songs!
My personal favorite is “Convoy,” but there’s too many good ones to really focus on just one.
So let’s talk about two.
In October of 1965, Red Sovine made a bunch of grown men get weepy as he sang about a father-son trucking duo who reunited after several years apart.
Some people say that real men don’t cry, but I’ll tell you this right now. You ain’t a real man if you can listen to “Giddyup Go” without bawling because that song is dang beautiful, man.
Now Red Sovine didn’t do as much singing, but he had a lot of those great talking songs. And nobody knew how to tug at the heart strings like he could.
In “Giddyup Go,” we’re treated to the story of an old trucker who has lost track of his wife and son. I can’t give you too much of a description because I’ll start crying on the keyboard, but suffice to say that the end of the song finds the old trucker reconnecting with his son, only to find that they’re both truck drivers now.
And how did he know it was his son? Because they both named their rigs the same thing: Giddyup Go, after the only thing the little boy could say when he saw his father’s truck that first time.
It’s a beautiful thing, the love between a father and son. Especially when it’s set to the sweet sounds of classic country music.
Geez, Minnie. At least take the price tag off the sequel song before you play it. Make it a little more original. Aww, who am I talking to? (Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash)
Then there’s the sequel song. So the first two songs we’ve looked at were all largely written and performed by the artist who originated the story. This one is different, however, because comedy legend Minnie Pearl lent her voice to the unlikely story of a truck stop manager who had watched the boy grow up, knew his mother when she died, and had always wondered if the boy would meet his father again.
And wouldn’t you know it? She just so happens to be working the day that these two men come in for a cup of coffee.
It’s enough of a coincidence that, of all the trucks on the millions of miles of roads in the US, the father and son saw each other in their matching “Giddyup Go” rigs. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t have the story.
But now you’re telling me there’s a third unlikely incident at play? Of all the Rick Blaine-level things that could happen, they just happen to walk into this one?
It’s not a bad song at all. Just unremarkable. And if we’re being honest, what’s worse than an unremarkable sequel?
What makes the imaginatively titled “Giddyup Go Answer” even more perplexing is that it’s just the same story from an outsider’s perspective. It gives a little bit more information about the mom and how she died of cancer, and then how she wanted her son to become a truck driver, but it’s kinda like watching A Walk to Remember from the point-of-view of Shane’s other girlfriend.
Sure, you were there, but…who cares?
And yes, I admit that I had to look up the names of the characters from that movie because wow. It’s been a few years.
Seeing as they were still the Dixie Chicks when this song was released, I am sticking with that name. Also…that dead guy won four Emmies and a Golden Globe. Really.
Earl is Dead! Long Live Earl!
Speaking of things I had to look up, I learned something new! Remember that quip I made earlier about a zombified Earl coming back for revenge on the Dixie Chicks?
Well buckle up, because…no. That’s not a thing that happened. I am still petitioning for it, mind you.
No, but I did learn that the death of Earl was not the first place we meet this mythical figure. And this one might just be the story that includes the two most well-known songs.
According to this article from the website Whiskey Riff, which I also just learned is a thing that exists, the character Earl, who meets an untimely death due to some tainted peas, has been up to no good before.
Specifically, Earl was caught trying to snatch a woman of nobility away from her king. Even more specifically, Earl is the man mentioned, by name, in Sammy Kershaw’s “Queen of my Double-Wide Trailer.”
For those who may not be country music junkies, Kershaw’s hit is about a man who falls in love with a woman he meets at a restaurant. They like the simple life, things like chicken-fried steaks, onion rings, and watching TV. But this woman, who he promoted to the ranks of royalty, has a tendency to abdicate her throne from time to time according to the song’s chorus.
So I made her the queen of my double wide trailer
With the polyester curtains and the red wood deck
Now she's run off and I've got to trail her
Dang her black heart and her pretty red neck
You might wonder why a man like our narrator would worry so much about a woman who is clearly bent on leaving him, but he seems like a good man. After all, Earl is lucky he lived long enough to die in a Dixie Chicks song given how this interaction goes.
Well, a few nights later I run into her
With some stranger on a park bench
She said, "He rebuilds engines and his name is Earl
He's the Charlie Daniels of the torque-wrench"
Don’t smirk at me, you scum bag! (Photo from AmericanProfile.com)
Given how the last two men who messed around with the wrong woman ended up, Earl should’ve caught more than the sharp end of a witty barb. Had Big John been around, we know what would’ve happened.
Given what we know about Earl, that might not have been the worst outcome. And the signs were there. Oh, they were there.
I whispered, "Honey let's just go on home
Have some onion rings and watch TV"
As I walked her to the truck
Earl was crying, "Don't you leave me"
Did you hear that? He threatened her!
Now I’ll admit, I always thought this was just the call of some lovesick fool pining for the infectious attention of a southern siren, but given this revelation of his true identity, I don’t know if we can ascribe such a positive spin to his intentions.
Let’s fast forward a few years and see exactly what happens when this fellow meets a new love of his life. These two high school friends Mary Ann and Wanda go their separate ways. Mary Ann moves off to the city and becomes a big success, so we’re led to believe, and Wanda settles for scummy old Earl. And then the trouble starts.
Well, it wasn't two weeks after she got married that
Wanda started gettin' abused
She'd put on dark glasses and long sleeved blouses
And makeup to cover a bruise
Well, she finally got the nerve to file for divorce
She let the law take it from there
But Earl walked right through that restraining order
And put her in intensive care
Look. Y’all know the story. Earl had to die! That’s all there is to it. And nobody blames the ladies for taking such drastic action.
That’s the great thing about country music. I know there are plenty of songs about cheating and finding illicit love, but there are also a fair few about those people getting their comeuppance. It’s equal opportunity!
Well…at least in that regard, anyway.
The only thing that could’ve made the demise of Earl a little bit sweeter is if the Redneck Regent and her (presumed) husband had shown up at the end to give a little wink and a nod at their former enemy’s fate. Maybe they could buy one of those roadside hams the girls were hocking?
Here’s to the Sequel Songs!
And now for my grand conclusion, the part where I release some grand insight that wraps everything up and ties it all together.
Any minute now.
As soon as the inspiration strikes.
…
Alright, look. I got nothing. The fact is, sequel songs are a fun little oddity in country music that I, for one, think we need more of in the world. There are a few key examples I left off because I can only write so much. I’m longwinded, but not that longwinded.
“I only saved your life so I could kill you! That car was priceless!” (Photo by Josh Berquist on Unsplash)
We didn’t talk about Charlie Daniels’ “Uneasy Rider” and it’s companion, “Uneasy Rider ‘88.” I do love the idea that Daniels would just keep putting out a new version every year, like Nashville’s own little MCU.
Then there’s the one that sorta fits in here, even if it really doesn’t. When Chubby Checker took the world by storm with “The Twist,” in 1960, he decided, “Let’s run it back!” So in 1961, he released a song called “Let’s Twist Again!” Even if it’s not country song, you have to admire the gall of someone to release a sequel to a dance song. That’s bold.
For my money, the country song I most want a sequel to is David Ball’s 2001 song, “Riding with Private Malone.” Sure, it may be a song that played on early 2000’s America’s patriotism, featuring a veteran driving an old Corvette. And sure, that Corvette was formerly owned by a young man who died in the Vietnam War, and who’s ghost was hanging around in the passenger seat of the car.
At the end of the song, the narrator says he wrecked his car and “someone saw a soldier pull me out.”
Personally, I just want to know how mad Pvt. Malone was that some idiot destroyed his ‘Vette. That’s the song I want to hear.