Big John

 

 Sometimes you get a song into your head and just can't shake it for a while. For some reason, Big Bad John did this to me the other day. So I googled it and just like last time I researched a song, I learned a bunch.

These goats are hard to photograph because their faces are so dark

 I'll let you read the Wikipedia entry; it lead me to three more songs. My Big John by Dottie West, and then The Cajun Queen and Little Bitty Big John by Jimmy Dean again. Listen to the four songs in this order to get the whole story of Big John. It's fun!
 By the way, the photos in this post have nothing to do with the content. I took them earlier in the year on a hike in Switzerland. All my posts show some of my pictures, and just text on a web site would have to be more compelling than what I write, to be interesting without illustrations.

A train down in the Mattertal

 I used to tell people that I had come to the USA because of country music. Growing up in Switzerland we basically had three government-run radio stations that tried to cover all interests and provide the information the population needed to make informed decisions in elections and when voting on new laws or rejecting existing ones.
 While American rock and pop music could be heard all day long, only on Tuesday nights between ten and midnight could you listen to American Country. I found that unfair and came to the US to get more of it ;-)

Clinging to live on a rock. Click on it to see it up close

 One thing I liked about country music was that I could often understand what they were singing. Even today, with much better English, I often don't understand what people are saying in rock and pop songs. Also, many country songs tell a story. Like that of Big John. He was so big, it took four songs to cover it all.
I got turned off to country during the Bush years when the Dixie Chicks were banned from country stations and their CDs burned for speaking out against the Iraq war. So much for freedom and free speech.

My antidepressant when politics and live get to me

 But once in a while I'm drawn back to my old fondness as happened the other day with Big John. Of course, during my search I came across other old favorites I had long forgotten like Harper Valley P.T.A. by Jeannie C. Riley.

These are rare

Or, maybe it is this one. I forget. Need to ask Stef again.

 If you listen to these songs on repeat for several hours in a row, they start losing some of their appeal and your brain becomes free to think about something else again.
 Or not. One more time and then back to Iko Iko...