The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer's Craft

Fame

FAME I began to lose myinnocence about ravishing fame one daywhen I came to work, sifted the mail on my desk, and opened a letter on New Mexico motel stationery: Kim: I was playing a charity gig down in Albuquerque when I came across one of your songs. It's good. Damn good. I want it. If you have anymore that good, I want them too. —Johnny Cash With letter in hand, I returned to the outer office and asked the secretary , "Which of my friends faked this? Do you recognize the handwriting ?" Mary took the letter from me, and with one glance she went wild. "That's his signature! That's Johnny! I have all his records, and some of them have his writing on them. That's it!That's him!" What happened next began to instruct me. I bit hard. At last, the big time. At last, myyearsof slaveryto the forlorn causeof unknown literature were about to end. Click, click, click—it all fell into place. Ten years before, I had mailed the lyrics to my "Juliaetta Coffee Blues" toJohnny. He hadn't responded then, but now something had reminded him. Mygenius had bloomed in his attention. But how did he run across my song—in Albuquerque?It didn't matter. He had it. He could hear my song with big music behind it: I put a pack of sugar in my pocket for the road— Better take two, if only I'd knowed What a woman can do to a man when he's all alone. Behind my reverie, Marywas still talking. "He's playing in Portland tonight, you know—him and the . . . what do they call them? The Highwaymen':Johnny Cash,Willie Nelson , WaylonJennings, and Kristofferson—Kris Kristofferson. They're at the coliseum. I wonder if they're all sold out." In two minutes, I knew they were not, for I wason the phone with plastic in hand, breathlessly reading my credit card number to an operator at Fastix, and then the proud owner of a twenty-dollarticketto the tall back balcony. I was on my way! My next move was to check the envelope: sure enough, aNashville return address. I called my agent in NewYork. "Lizzie, Kim. Hey,Johnny Cashwants my song. Should I just send it? Send him the lyrics and score ... a tape?" There was a pause on the line, and then Lizzie caught the fever. At last her client of sleepyessays and tasteful poems had broken through. "Maybe you'd better write him first," she said, "and ask for the best procedure. It maybe that I should work with his agent. Webetter buy some time here. I don't have any experience with country music, but it's probably handled agent to agent." Another pause. "I could make the contact, but since he wrote you, it's probably best for you to respond —at first. Good luck, and keep me posted! Okay?" What should I do until 8P.M.? College work?Budgets? Course proposals ? Shouldn't I head home and start rehearsing for my demo tape? That would be needed soon. Did I know anyone who could really play the guitar? Or should I leave that to Johnny and his people? Il8 I THE M U S E S A M O N G US From the top row of bleachers, the distant stage was electric blue, and the Highwaymen, those four males at their microphones had strut and cadence down! Song after song in tight rhythm and rich harmonic filled the haze of the auditorium. And after their opening set, the other three stepped back, and Johnny came out alone. His solo began as a kind of talking blues: Down in some little old Southern town . . . a tattered flag on the courthouse pole . . . an old guy on a bench in the park... and the narrator—Johnny, myJohnny—asking wasn't that town ashamed to have such a tattered flag? And then, in Johnny's amazing voice, the old man giving it back, no holds barred: Why son, that flag unfurled at Trenton, when the British troops were caught. . . and they shot her through at New Orleans, in the War of 1812 ... and aboard old Ironsides, she took a shred of holes ... in the trenches of France ... Hitler ... IwoJima ... Korea ... Vietnam." Man oh man, he had one big voice, I thought, but his material could use some work. He...