“Oh, Bother.”— Winnie-the-Pooh
Here I sit, listening to “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow.” It’s playing on repeat.
Hello, Soggy Bottom Boys of the past!
I find myself wanting to swim in the energy of the movie. In the energy of the moment. In the energy of the song.
Verse 3 is the verse that gets me in my feels.
“It’s fare thee well, my old true lover
I never expect to see you again
For I’m bound to ride that Northern Railroad
Perhaps I’ll die upon this train.”
(Perhaps he’ll die on this train.)
PERHAPS?!
So basically, this man has no friends, lives a life of constant sorrow, and muses that perhaps he’ll die upon this train.
At this point, I’m convinced he actually HOPES he ends up dead on the train. For fuck’s sake!
The man hath chosen a path, and he will ride it until the wheels fall off. As Martin Lawrence once said. Or at least that’s who I remember saying it.
Oof.
Soggy bottoms up!
Spoken like a true man who has apparently decided that death and a life of debauchery are fates better than ending up with Henrietta, whom he left behind.
Never expects to see her again!
WHOOPSIE DAISY!
She’s at the train station in Nashville and notices that he did not, in fact, die on the train.
Well, at least not on the last train, anyway.
Now what’s a forlornly destined dude to do?
“Surely, I shall die upon ONE of these tracks!”, he says.
Oof.
Life. Men. Sex. Love. Death.
Yup. Let Freedom Ring!
“In my last life — I died on a train.” – His whiskey lullaby tale of a fatal life loss lived.
Perhaps the movie should have been called O Brother, Why the Fuck Did You Do That?
I mean, who gets on a train to nowhere, fully expecting that nowhere might very well be the end of the line, and thinks, Well, this seems reasonable.
Apparently, a man of constant sorrow.
And here’s the kicker. In the movie, Everett’s wife has already told their children he was killed by a train.
A MAN SINGING ABOUT DYING ON A TRAIN WHOSE FAMILY THINKS HE ALREADY DIED ON A TRAIN.
You can’t make this shit up.
Well, the Coen brothers did.
Anywhoo.
I guess some things should die so that others may… uh, live? (A little philosophical wisdom courtesy of Kyle Bradway from Party Down: “One dream dies so another can live.” It’s fucking genius.)
Which brings me to a conversation with my dad today about the subject of abject misery.
He reminded me that living in constant sorrow — or being a person of constant sorrow — is a CHOICE.
And there’s something to that.
Sorrow happens. Life happens. Shit happens. Sometimes all three show up together, uninvited, carrying luggage, and refuse to leave.
But at what point do we stop experiencing sorrow and start identifying as its permanent resident?
At what point do we decide that because yesterday was miserable, tomorrow ought to be miserable too?
And why the fuck are we buying another ticket for the same train?
Then Mel Gibson — or some AI-generated shit pretending to be Mel Gibson, prolly — came across my screen and said that worryin’ is a sin.
Well, hell.
Now I’ve got my dad telling me sorrow is a choice and possibly Mel Gibson telling me worrying is a sin.
Apparently, misery is having a bad day in the court of public opinion.
Anywhoo.
So then I moved on from “Man of Constant Sorrow” to “Big Rock Candy Mountain.”
Now THIS dude dreams in cigarette trees! Wow. Okay! I’m not a cigarette smoker but it’s fun to think about cigarette trees. I imagine trees with hanging cigarettes. Dying in a smoker’s paradise.
And I quote:
“Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees”
Shit, I’ll smoke what he’s smoking, Smokey Joe! Pass that grass over here lil lass.
Because apparently, there are two kinds of men riding the railroad.
One is riding toward his possible demise, bidding farewell to his lover, his friends, and apparently any remaining enthusiasm for life.
The other is dreaming of sunshine, empty boxcars, and cigarette trees.
SAME RAILROAD. DIFFERENT DESTINATION.
One man’s train to nowhere is another man’s ticket to paradise.
And isn’t that just life?
We can spend our days lamenting the places we’ve been, the people we’ve lost, the things we’ve done, and the things that have been done to us.
Or we can dream of cigarette trees and hope for a better tomorrow.
Not that cigarette trees solve anything. But neither does wishing for death aboard the Northern Railroad.
For fuck’s sake.
Maybe constant sorrow is less about the sorrow itself and more about our determination to keep it constant.
And maybe some things really do need to die so that others may live.
Old stories. Old lovers. Old disappointments. Old tickets to destinations we never wanted to visit in the first place.
But don’t leave me lonely, and don’t close the door.
Let another love walk through.
Give the devil the finger and the stink eye, and give God His due.
Because life is already strange enough without voluntarily riding the misery train until the wheels fall off.
Soggy bottoms up!
I’m going to find those cigarette trees.
