Topic: Why Did Jack Sing Water Walking Jesus?

[ksxks]

I always wonder why a 19-year-old guy in 1963 would sing a hymn like Water Walking Jesus instead of some popular song.  We know he listened to radio in his truck. Here is the top ten from 1963, although maybe you could only get C/W stations out there at that time.  (Remember Wolfman Jack?  I think you could hear him all over the country!)  And what did he play on the harmonica?  Not Fingertips Pt. 2? 

Top Ten of 1963

1) The Ronettes, "Be My Baby"
2) The Kingsmen, "Louie, Louie"
3) The Crystals, "Da Doo Ron Ron"
4) The Chiffons, "One Fine Day"
5) Stevie Wonder, "Fingertips Pt. 2"
6) Roy Orbison, "In Dreams"
7) The Drifters, "Up On The Roof"
8 ) The Surfaris, "Wipe Out"
9) The Four Seasons, "Walk Like A Man"
10) Lesley Gore, "It's My Party"

kathy

[tpe]

Interesting question, kathy.  I suppose he must have been re-living old childhood memories.  Memories of church songs should have been drilled into his head when he was young -- by his mother I would assume.  This is why I think he referenced his mother immediately after the song.   What were they talking about during this scene.  Perhaps they were swapping old stories about childhood and parents...

 

[LuvJackNasty]

From the SS:

Ennis knew the salty words to
"Strawberry Roan." Jack tried a Carl Perkins song, bawling "What I say ay
ay," but he favored a sad hymn, "Water Walking Jesus," learned from his
mother, who believed in the Pentecost, and that he sang at dirge slowness,
setting off distant coyote yips.


I have no idea about what he played on the harmonica.

[ande_nem]

I read somewhere (it might have been on here actually) that Jack sounds like he's playing the first bit of "He Was a Friend of Mine".

[Raisa]

I´m not surprised that Jack sang Water Walking Jesus. It must have been a strong memory from his childhood and mom. I myself often 'hear'  in my head short pieces of songs I have heard long time ago. Sometimes after hearing some song only once in my life. On example is 'this is the day, when Jesus took our sins away'. I have heard this hymn only once - I was on vacation and visited a Methodist Church sunday service, ´cos for me Methodist Church is exotic and a new acquaintance, ´cos I live in a country where  the Lutheran Church is the majority. Sometimes this piece just comes in my mind in rather unexpected situations. 

[tpe]

I´m not surprised that Jack sang Water Walking Jesus. It must have been a strong memory from his childhood and mom. I myself often 'hear'  in my head short pieces of songs I have heard long time ago. Sometimes after hearing some song only once in my life. On example is 'this is the day, when Jesus took our sins away'. I have heard this hymn only once - I was on vacation and visited a Methodist Church sunday service, ´cos for me Methodist Church is exotic and a new acquaintance, ´cos I live in a country where  the Lutheran Church is the majority. Sometimes this piece just comes in my mind in rather unexpected situations. 

Carmilla , I agree with you here.  Sometimes, from out of the blue, I recall an old church hymn I sang or heard during childhood -- something I thought I would have completely forgotten after all those years.  Those early memories die hard...

 

[welshwitch]

He's been drinking, and in that state people are often sentimental. Then there's the fact that in unguarded states things that were drummed into you as a child come back into your head. I haven't been in a church in years, but the other day i found myself singing a dreadful piece of doggerel I was made tol earn in Sunday School - that led on to a second. They were "Wonderful words of Life" and "Will Your anchor hold in the Storms of Life?" Non-music, non-poetry, rabble-rousing  stuff - I couldn't believe I could recall every word and phrase of something that if forced to listen to it now I should totally deplore.

This is Jack's mother's influence and that of whatever Pentecostal chapel she took him to surfacing when Jack isn;t totally in control of what he says and does.

[tpe]

OK.  Now what about the tune that Jack was learing on the harmonica?   He seemd to have been learning one tune throughout the BBM scenes.  He also seemed to have mastered it in the scene where they reconstituted the herd, as we hear a sizeable portion of it.

Personally, I ddidn't think it sounded like a portion of "He was a Friend of Mine".  It sounded more folksy -- more traditional.  Am I wrong in this?

[tpe]

OK.  Now what about the tune that Jack was learing on the harmonica?   He seemd to have been learning one tune throughout the BBM scenes.  He also seemed to have mastered it in the scene where they reconstituted the herd, as we hear a sizeable portion of it.

Personally, I didn't think it sounded like a portion of "He was a Friend of Mine".  It sounded more folksy -- more traditional.  Am I wrong in this?

[welshwitch]

My reaction was much like Ennis's, I'm afraid - don't think Jack had a great future as a harmonica player. Will listen again next time I watch and try to sort out a tune.

[tpe]

My reaction was much like Ennis's, I'm afraid - don't think Jack had a great future as a harmonica player. Will listen again next time I watch and try to sort out a tune.

For a busted harmonica, I didn't think he did too bad.  And the singing was not that bad either, IMO.  I love the melisma in the rendition of "Water Walking Jesus"...

The melisma I refer to falls on the word "fine".

[welshwitch]

Melisma? I think you're dignifying a drunken noise here!

[dalemidex]

I wonder if Jack and Ennis knew a lot of the popular songs of the time.

A friend of mine who grew up about 15 years later in rural southwestern Nebraska said the only stations they could get in the 60s/early 70s were local AM stations that were general purpose, with the only music being an occasional country song sandwiched between the news, obituaries, farm reports, weather, high school football games, radio auction shows and similar.  She knew about current music from her friends talking about it in school and listening to records at friend's houses, and on juke boxes around town.  What they heard in movies or saw on the one TV station in town also had an influence.  By her late teens the cool people started having 8-tracks in their cars, but before that it was only the car radio.  They did find an AM station from far way (St Louis?) they could sometimes pick up at night, but it was the hard-core music-starved ones who went to that effort.

Jack and Ennis both grew up in areas more remote than my friend did, and about about 15 years earlier, too.    Probably little current music on the radio growing up.  Growing up as remotely as they both did they probably didn't have music as a socialization lubricant with friends at school that one might think of, either.  They probably went to tiny schools with small classes, and everybody had similar limitations on their musical exposure.   And they were guys.  Guys don't go over to a friend's house to listen to records like girls may have.

I'm sure Ennis and Jack had heard of Elvis, Bobbie Darren, Roy Orbison, etc. and recognized some popular songs that he heard in a bar, or that was featured in a movie, or that Alma had a record of, etc.  But likely neither of them had popular songs embedded in their heads the way teens in other circumstances do.  And they may well not have known the words or melody well enough to sing it in front of somebody. 

Now the silly ditties we learn as kids...those are the kind of things that stick in our heads so that we can sometimes sing every blasted word years later.  Anybody else here know the 50 states in alpha order from that song back in grade school??  It is a skill that occasionally comes in handy, even if I do have to sing them to myself! 

[tpe]

Very nice, dalemidex.

In a related instance: Ennis remembers a half-forgotten song his mother used to sing to him when he was a child.  Again, it involves the mother...

[ksxks]

Interesting question, kathy.  I suppose he must have been re-living old childhood memories.  Memories of church songs should have been drilled into his head when he was young -- by his mother I would assume.  This is why I think he referenced his mother immediately after the song.   What were they talking about during this scene.  Perhaps they were swapping old stories about childhood and parents...
 

Yes, of course.  I didn't think of that, the context in which he was singing this song.  They must have been talking about being brought up, and church, and all.  Who knows, maybe young Jack liked to sing in the church choir.

kathy

[ksxks]

From the SS:

Ennis knew the salty words to
"Strawberry Roan." Jack tried a Carl Perkins song, bawling "What I say ay
ay," but he favored a sad hymn, "Water Walking Jesus," learned from his
mother, who believed in the Pentecost, and that he sang at dirge slowness,
setting off distant coyote yips.

I have no idea about what he played on the harmonica.

Thank you.  Sometimes I don't refer to the SS, and lots of answers found there.  I did recall that in the story they sang.  That seems right, that men and boys like them often sang out there on the plains.

kathy

[ksxks]

I read somewhere (it might have been on here actually) that Jack sounds like he's playing the first bit of "He Was a Friend of Mine".

That would be very cool!  I'll have to try to really listen.  Wonder which scene of this playing this would be.

kathy

[ksxks]

I wonder no more.  I like all these answers.  Of course the radio reception would have been limited out there; and besides, those Penacostal folk and Methodists too would have tried their darndest to keep that evil rock and roll out of the ears of their kids.

I know lots of hymns from my youth, too.  But mostly I was a little rock-and-roller since I was eight, dancing in the basement to Bill Haley, Rock Around the Clock, I remember.  But also, my father was a jazz piano player and all of us kids played the piano since we were little, and played the songs from his "fake books," so there we were, just little kids, playing and singing these sophisticated songs like "Autumn in New York" or some such.  Sorry, OT, about me...

kathy

[welshwitch]

I'm sure Dalemidex is right - when I was growing up there weren't the pop stations there  are now, though I did listen to the top twenty on Radio Luxembourg, often under the bedclothes at night. What kids mostly heard was hymns at church/chapel and the ones they were made to practise in school and sing every day in assembly. I had the added pleasure of my father playing hymns and sacred music ( often not very well and much to my mother's irritation); I also remember the local Baptist minister preaching against the evils of rock and roll, which he regarded as the devil's music. And we lived in a sizable town, not the back of beyond. Later we got Dansette record-players and started buying 45s of pop and rock but school still provided hymns, oratorios and Gilbert and Sullivan for light relief.

[tpe]

Interesting question, kathy.  I suppose he must have been re-living old childhood memories.  Memories of church songs should have been drilled into his head when he was young -- by his mother I would assume.  This is why I think he referenced his mother immediately after the song.   What were they talking about during this scene.  Perhaps they were swapping old stories about childhood and parents...
 

Yes, of course.  I didn't think of that, the context in which he was singing this song.  They must have been talking about being brought up, and church, and all.  Who knows, maybe young Jack liked to sing in the church choir.

kathy

In many ways, the evocation of memory in BBM is very profound.  Profound, and yet so natural.  Memory is such a tricky thing, no?  A fragment fo a melody or a song, a familiar scent, an old letter or picture -- and a whole world opens up to each and everyone of us.  Ennis and Jack and their own universes.  When they share and explore each other with the use of memory, it touches a chord in each and everyone of us.

[tpe]

I know lots of hymns from my youth, too.  But mostly I was a little rock-and-roller since I was eight, dancing in the basement to Bill Haley, Rock Around the Clock, I remember.  But also, my father was a jazz piano player and all of us kids played the piano since we were little, and played the songs from his "fake books," so there we were, just little kids, playing and singing these sophisticated songs like "Autumn in New York" or some such.  Sorry, OT, about me...

kathy

Do you find it interesting, kathy, that a lot of our earliest memories are distilled in a tune or a lyric phrase.  Could it be that from our earliest times as a human being, the strains of a lullaby already imbue us with a sense of the past?

Sorry, I love the role of memory and how it plays ouit in the lives of Ennis and Jack...

[ksxks]

Do you find it interesting, kathy, that a lot of our earliest memories are distilled in a tune or a lyric phrase.  Could it be that from our earliest times as a human being, the strains of a lullaby already imbue us with a sense of the past?

Sorry, I love the role of memory and how it plays ouit in the lives of Ennis and Jack...

Can you elaborate on this a bit?  I don't exactly have a sense of where to even start this subject, unless you mean about their childhoods shaping them.

kathy

[greenfrog]

I read somewhere (it might have been on here actually) that Jack sounds like he's playing the first bit of "He Was a Friend of Mine".

That would be very cool!  I'll have to try to really listen.  Wonder which scene of this playing this would be.

kathy

Really? I must go and have a listen.

[greenfrog]

Just went and had a listen. I'm certain that the first time he plays the harmonica, it's "He was a friend of mine" that he's playing.

The second tune sounds very familiar too, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

[welshwitch]

These are tunes??

[Tom]

When Ennis goes to the Twist farm it is Spartan to the extreme. Jacks room in particular has nothing in it. I personally don't think they had much money. If they were poor then maybe they didn't have a radio. I grew up in the 50's and 60's and we weren't dirt poor but TV's and Radios were relatively expensive and there were times when we didn't have one or the other and occasionally both. The only music I heard at those times were

a) the songs my mother sang to me
b) the songs I got in music class at school
c) the songs I got at Sunday school.

Now jack was from a mid western town which would be a lot more religious back then than it is even today, so as his mother was a church goer it follows that he probably was too. If you listen to sound recordings from that area from the "country" genre like the Carter Family etc then there was a very religious, moral and spiritual aspect to the music. If they did have a radio I am sure his mother would have had it tuned to this kind of channel.

So I think imo that the reason he sang Water walking Jesus and not the pop songs of the day was down to his not having access to them and the religious influence of (1) the times he was living in (ii) the area of the US he was living in at that time and (iiii) his mother who obviously loved her son and doted on him. We know from the short story how his dad treated him so I think he would have had the closer bond with Mama Twist.

I don't think it's because he didn't like the pop stars of the day he probably didn't have much experiences of listening to them , that is all. Also you have to remember his young age, even the year before he was working on BBM which was probably his first time away from home, so how would he be able to listen to songs up the side of a mountain. OK he may have heard some on the rodeo circuit, but watch the film....in the bar scenes, in the car with Laureen, at the dance ....it is country music and not pop music that is being played. Remember also that the majority of Americans at that time thought Rock and Roll was the devils music.....Christ they even had record burning sessions.

These are just observations of mine as to why he sang that song. I am not American and I wasn't around in the US, in the mid west at that time so maybe one of you could tell me different.

[erica loves jack]

keep in mind he was drunk.

when you're drunk, you can sing a lot of weird things. haha.

my guess is that he remembered his mom singing that when he was a kid or something.

[greenfrog]

These are tunes??

I have clips of the harmonica on my computer.

They sound very much like songs from the soundtrack.

[tpe]

Do you find it interesting, kathy, that a lot of our earliest memories are distilled in a tune or a lyric phrase.  Could it be that from our earliest times as a human being, the strains of a lullaby already imbue us with a sense of the past?

Sorry, I love the role of memory and how it plays ouit in the lives of Ennis and Jack...

Can you elaborate on this a bit?  I don't exactly have a sense of where to even start this subject, unless you mean about their childhoods shaping them.

kathy

Sorry kathy for seeing this just now.

All the above relate to childhood memories shaping both of them, certainly.  But even the memory of that single pivotal time in their lives -- Brokeback in 63 -- seems to become a major presence in the story.  There are times when I feel that the past propels them, and not the present, on to the future.  And then I realize that many of us can't let go of the past, especially if it holds some vague but haunted promise for what we hope is to come.

[tpe]

When Ennis goes to the Twist farm it is Spartan to the extreme. Jacks room in particular has nothing in it. I personally don't think they had much money. If they were poor then maybe they didn't have a radio. I grew up in the 50's and 60's and we weren't dirt poor but TV's and Radios were relatively expensive and there were times when we didn't have one or the other and occasionally both. The only music I heard at those times were

a) the songs my mother sang to me
b) the songs I got in music class at school
c) the songs I got at Sunday school.

Now jack was from a mid western town which would be a lot more religious back then than it is even today, so as his mother was a church goer it follows that he probably was too. If you listen to sound recordings from that area from the "country" genre like the Carter Family etc then there was a very religious, moral and spiritual aspect to the music. If they did have a radio I am sure his mother would have had it tuned to this kind of channel.

So I think imo that the reason he sang Water walking Jesus and not the pop songs of the day was down to his not having access to them and the religious influence of (1) the times he was living in (ii) the area of the US he was living in at that time and (iiii) his mother who obviously loved her son and doted on him. We know from the short story how his dad treated him so I think he would have had the closer bond with Mama Twist.

I don't think it's because he didn't like the pop stars of the day he probably didn't have much experiences of listening to them , that is all. Also you have to remember his young age, even the year before he was working on BBM which was probably his first time away from home, so how would he be able to listen to songs up the side of a mountain. OK he may have heard some on the rodeo circuit, but watch the film....in the bar scenes, in the car with Laureen, at the dance ....it is country music and not pop music that is being played. Remember also that the majority of Americans at that time thought Rock and Roll was the devils music.....Christ they even had record burning sessions.

These are just observations of mine as to why he sang that song. I am not American and I wasn't around in the US, in the mid west at that time so maybe one of you could tell me different.

Thanks Tom.  Beautifully said.

To have grown up in a spartan home -- like Jack.  HIs deepest and most cherished memories must have been just as spartan.