The Pilgrim Jubilees

22. "I'm Not Perfect..."

22. "I'm Not Perfect..." C leave Graham's statement iselegant in its simplicity. "I'm not perfeet ," he says, "but the one I sing about is." In that one sentence is encapsulated his abiding Christian faith, his desire to spread a message in song about that faith, and his recognition of human frailty, including his own. As veterans ofnigh onfiftyyears on the road, the Pilgrim Jubilees have met all the pitfalls and temptations that await the traveling performer—and learned from their experiences. Major "We had to learn. It's a hard wayout there. When you get in the lights, they'll all be pulling at you. And you end up messing around until you get used to the lights. But you know they only want this because you are in the lights. Youfigureout what you're going through and what you're doing to yourself.Then you start slowing down. Yousay,'Do I want a girlfriend or do I want a fan? Do I want somebody who'll stay with me forever as my fan, or do I want somebody who's going to get mad and then there won't be no fan and no girlfriend?' Time will teach you,and you'll get some of that stuff out of your system. But when you first go out there, you think 'Oh my God. They're carrying on over me, I must be . . .' No, it'sonly because they're looking at you on the stage. Then they can goback and tell their friends, 'Oh, I go with one of the PilgrimJubilees.' They can tear your 214 "I'm Not Perfect ..." 215 name up real good. So ... you can't stop it from happening, but you try to keep it discreet. I'll admit that when we first went out, we weren't used to it, and sometimes it would end up in a little mess that it shouldn't have. But that will wear off. Once you learn ... they're doing you like this, and when the next set of guys comes through, they'll do the same thing to them. They go from one group to the next. "And you find out that if you start messing around with your fans, you get a bad name. Because if something goes wrong with the relationship, they'll start putting the bad mouth out there, and it'll ugly you up. So you leam. When they're sitting on the front row in the auditorium with their dresses all the wayup, legs so you can see everything, you know what it's all about. And you learn how to live with yourself. At first, it's exciting— "Whoo, look at this!" But you learn after so long and you're careful. But when you're young . . . you don't have to be young in age to be young; it's being inexperienced and running into an environment so different from the one at home. Everything's swarmingaround you. 'We want your autograph.' 'We want you over for dinner.' And when you get there, you find out it's not only for dinner. Down the line you learn if there's a hook under that bait. You don't know until you get caught a couple of times. And then . . . you have to do a lot of praying. If you cease to pray out there, everything will grab you." Clay: "When women go crazy over you, you go crazy over them, too. Then you go on about your business. When I say go crazy over them, you love 'em at the auditorium, you talk to them, youkiss them on the jaw—and when you leave there, you leave by yourself. Ain't nobody perfect. But if I try to stretch myself out across this country with every woman that comes to me, I would have been dead a long time ago. And when you're singing the gospel and praising the Lord every night, you've got to have some right somewhere. You don't go to bed with women just because they are there. That just isn't what it's supposed to be. Everybody does a little something, but you don't go and lay down and wallow. You've got to back up and go on about your business. And you got to pray.When you stop prayingand asking the Lord for your direction and strength, you've got a problem. When you get hung up...