The Great Compromise
January 12th, 2008
Sometime this week, my friend and D&D compatriot Josh “JJ” Hornbeck, a sergeant in the National Guard, is going to be redeployed to the bottomless pit of Iraq for a little over a year. To say that I’m worried about his safety is a bit of an understatement…but JJ is highly-trained, alert, and most likely going to be detailed to a postal outfit handling snailmail communications to and from the States like he was during his last tour of duty.
Nonetheless, in honor of his redeployment, I’m quoting here the complete lyrics of one of my alltime favorite John Prine songs, “The Great Compromise,” as, even though it was written during the Vietnam War era, it is even more relevant to the United States’ current military endeavours than it was to ‘Nam.
And in case you’re not particularly perceptive, let’s just say that this song is not about a guy jilted by a slutty date. “The Great Compromise” is one of the greatest examples of extended metaphor ever utilized in a protest song. In fact, despite the fact that Bob Dylan is considered the God of Protest Songs, he never produced anything with the poetic sublimity and sad resignation of John Prine’s “The Great Compromise.”
So, without further ado:
I knew a girl who was almost a lady
She had a way with all the men in her life
Every inch of her blossomed in beauty
And she was born on the fourth of July
Well she lived in an aluminum house trailer
And she worked in a juke box saloon
And she spent all the money I give her
Just to see the old man in the moonChorus:
I used to sleep at the foot of Old Glory
And awake in the dawn’s early light
But much to my surprise
When I opened my eyes
I was a victim of the great compromiseWell we’d go out on Saturday evenings
To the drive-in on Route 41
And it was there that I first suspected
That she was doin’ what she’d already done
She said “Johnny won’t you get me some popcorn”
And she knew I had to walk pretty far
And as soon as I passed through the moonlight
She hopped into a foreign sports car(Repeat chorus)
Well you know I could have beat up that fellow
But it was her that had hopped into his car
Many times I’d fought to protect her
But this time she was goin’ too far
Now some folks they call me a coward
‘Cause I left her at the drive-in that night
But I’d druther have names thrown at me
Than to fight for a thing that ain’t right(Repeat chorus)
Now she writes all the fellows love letters
Saying “Greetings, come and see me real soon”
And they go and line up in the barroom
And spend the night in that sick woman’s room
But sometimes I get awful lonesome
And I wish she was my girl instead
But she won’t let me live with her
And she makes me live in my head
Think about it. How many of our young men and women today are spending years in that “sick woman’s room”? Ask yourself: when, precisely, did Lady Liberty become the oil-addicted whore of OPEC and the American petroleum industry?
I think it’s time for an intervention.
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