the streets of bakersfield

I always kind of hated Buck Owens.

See, I'm from Bakersfield, but wasn't always from Bakersfield; I was born in Colorado, near Denver, amidst greenery and winter snow, springtime showers and fresh air. When I was 9, my father got transferred, and we then moved to what can charitably be called a different clime.

Less charitably, we can say a dusty, smog-filled dirthole that culturally was a little bit of the conservative South blown with the Dust Bowl into one of the most godforsaken bits of central California you could find. Before I was even a teenager, I developed a bitter, reactionary prejudice against all things cowboy, all things "country". And then of course we've got some mild father issues entwined here, the father who always had a pair of cowboy boots but never before moving to Bakersfield had stretched out his, what was this, Maryland drawl? Do Marylanders have a drawl, or was he a total Zelig product of his environment? My father was turning hick, was the sad truth, except not entirely, because he himself scoffed at country music, at the very thing he was becoming
oh the complexity of it all.

To me, country was the fakest thing I knew, because I had no knowledge of nor respect for its origins, and the modern stuff was so wrapped up in the growing neo-conservatism that gags one to think of, and so when, during my high school years, Buck Owens in his old age began embracing once more his chosen home of Bakersfield, opening his goddamn Crystal Palace restaurant/club, THAT PEOPLE WERE EXCITED ABOUT AND WENT TO, people I talked to, and then getting a street renamed in his honor---what was wrong with Pierce Road? "Buck Owens Boulevard," it was called. Seriously.
It was like a joke, is the thing, how Bakersfield it all was. All I detested most, embodied in this man, this rhinestone cowboy, with his homey name, his Crystal Palace

Yeah, I really didn't like him.

As I got older, I softened toward country music, and in the aftermath of the Bush re-election I've worked hard at seeing the non-evil in people who don't share my views.

This is to say, when I heard Buck Owens had died, I wasn't indifferent. Not, to be honest, sad, but, well, I started to read about the man. To look and see if there were things I'd missed in my prior wholehearted distaste. I by habit read a lot of music blogs, some by people who enjoy country music to an extent, and so they had some Buck Owens songs. I felt like an entirely other person downloading the tune "Streets of Bakersfield," I will tell you that. I was a bit afraid what I'd hear in the song, thinking surely it would make me hate Buck forever, and is that a kind thing, when the poor man's dead?

It starts out pretty good--reassuringly pretty little guitar intro, and the lines, "I came here lookin' for somethin'--"
I am a big fan of talking about looking for something.
"--somethin' I couldn't find anywhere else."
Unsatisfied searching is even better.
"I don't wanna be nobody, just want a chance to be myself"
Self-identity struggles! Now, that's the stuff!
"I've done a thousand miles a' thumbin'"
Ooo, world-weary.
"Yes, I've worn blisters on my heels. Tryin to find something better"
Aren't we all
"--on the streets of Bakersfield."
Ok, now this is ambiguous. He is looking to the streets of Bakersfield as a likely provider of what he has not found everywhere else he's been? OR, the interpretation I prefer, it's not like he's saying the streets of Bakersfield are great and definitely where he will find better things, but rather the streets of Bakersfield are where he currently is, and maybe has been before, and it's where he is currently trying to find something better, and it's like, Bakersfield is the base setting for his weary, lonely searching. The streets of Bako are where he's trying to find something better, but since he has to try at all, it implies that it's an effort, see, maybe a repeated, ongoing effort, to find something better there.

I am identifying with Buck Owens at this point, is what I'm saying.
The first two years after college, I was right there with you, Buck-o.

"You don't know me but you don't like me"
Well, you know, maybe I was hasty, Buck.
"You say you care less how I feel. How many of you that sit and judge me/ever walk the streets of Bakersfield?"
Not sure this is how Buck meant it, but what I am taking away is, "You don't know what I've been through--STREETS OF BAKERSFIELD, man."
Then there follows a humorous bit about being in jail and stealing money from a drunkard cellmate, then
against all sense
heading back to Bakersfield.

It does tend to pull one back, Bakersfield; like a riptide, quicksand, substance dependency, etc.

So ok, Buck's view of Bakersfield was rosier than mine, but I know what he meant by just wanting a place to be himself; I can say, as he could: "You won't ever really understand me until you go to Bakersfield." And because of that commonality, I can easily continue interpreting this song my way, and I know, I know, soon will come a time for me to try my new motto: How many of you that sit and judge me ever walk the streets of Bakersfield? And I'll have a kicky little tune in my head.

Amends, Buck.
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