In mud season, some lines stick better than others

Won’t be long before mud season. That’s when we can sing Brad Paisley’s hit song, “Mud on the Tires” with gusto as we’re spinning the pickup deeper into thawing mire, spraying stones every which way and causing a general muck-up of the road, if you’ll pardon me.

Interesting lyrics, some of these country music songs pushing their way to the top of the charts like rocks heaved up onto the golf course by winter’s deep freeze. The stories set to music tell of cavorting in the moonlight and following first love when it’s blooming as new as delicate paperwhites.

That’s what poetry – and country music – is all about.

The problem is, the poetry lines fade with memory yet the lyrics of country music roll on like the mighty Mississippi. Or the tide, they roll on, during the night when sleep is interrupted by tunes and words, repetitive refrains and catchy rhymes.

“‘Cause it’s a good night, to be out there soakin’ up the moonlight. Stake out a little piece of shoreline, I got the perfect place in mind. It’s in the middle of nowhere, only one way to get there. Gotta get a little mud on the tires.”

Now, just compare those words to these by Shakespeare from “The Merchant of Venice” and see which ones you remember during a winter’s night:

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank. Here will we sit, and let the sound of music creep in our ears: soft stillness, and the night, become the touches of sweet harmony…”

Flash forward to Paisley’s sweet harmony: “Moonlight on a duck vine, catfish on a trout line. Sun sets about nine, this time of year. We can throw a blanket down, crickets singing in the background, and more stars than you can count on a night this clear.”

Shakespeare said basically the same thing but do you remember this at night?

“Sit, Jessica, how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; there’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st, but in his motion like an angel sings, still quiring to the young-ey’d cherubims.”

Nope, but you do: “Then with a little luck, we might just get stuck, let’s get a little mud on the tires.”

Compare further Ralph Waldo Emerson, to be exact, and country music star Sara Evans, both writing about love taking ahold of someone like the flu.

This is how Emerson described it: “The lover watched his graceful maid, as ‘mid the virgin train she strayed, nor knew her beauty’s best attire was woven still by the snow-white choir. At last she came to his hermitage, like the bird from the woodlands to the cage; the gay enchantment was undone – a gentle wife, but fairy none.”

Nice phraseology but nothing to keep one awake at night. Try Evans’ music and lyrics instead and watch your feet tapping out of control: “She was in the backyard, they say it was a little past nine when her prince pulled up, a white pickup truck…”

“Now her daddy’s in the kitchen – starin’ out the window scratching’ and rackin’ his brains. How could 18 years just up and walk away? Our little pony-tailed girl growed up to be a woman, now she’s gone in the blink of an eye. She left the suds in the bucket, and the clothes hangin’ out on the line.”

You must admit, those words hang on … like the clothes on the line.