ARE YOU SURE MERLE DONE IT THIS WAY?
by Angela James
“It’s Not Love (But It’s Not Bad)” was a number one hit on the 1972 country charts for Merle Haggard and the Strangers. In addition to having one of the best opening lines ever, this song frankly explores the messy yet familiar situation where the person you desire and the person you settle down with are not the same. This story is directly inspired by this song and pays loving tribute to its place in the country canon.
The waitress gives us one of those thin-lipped scowls as she passes our table. Even though I really want a refill on my Coke, I get it. Young people sharing a plate of fries is the universal formula for a bad tip.
“This is the song we should use! Pretty much everyone loves Alan Jackson,” says Jack Number Two, nodding towards the jukebox.
We are trying to pick out “our” song for the first dance. With my Grandma and Grampa funding our wedding shindig at the Legion in two weeks, it is coming down to the crunch.
We had arrived at the truck stop with our lists written out. All of Jack Number Two’s suggestions so far have been new country radio ditties about small towns, dirt roads, traditional values, etc. Not a single real country song in the bunch.
I’m sure a better woman would experience the love of a good guy like Jack Number Two as a burning ring of fire that torments and transforms her and would embrace the songs that bring him joy. But I have not lost my mind over Jack Number Two. It’s ok. Maybe it’s even good. My grandparents dealt with enough foolishness with my mother. That’s how they got stuck raising me. And I have already experienced enough foolishness myself.
Seriously, though, how am I supposed to jump for joy about lyrics going on about how it’s all right to be a little bitty? When my whole frigging life is already little and is getting even bitty-er? “I think that song might be too fast,” I tell Jack Number Two.
“Well,” he says, “people might want to watch something livelier than us just slow dancing.”
“If we want something a bit faster, maybe we should just be honest and go with ‘She’s Having My Baby,’” I tell him. That gets a scowl, making me feel mean as I often do when we disagree.
Unlike the “Unwed Fathers” in the Tammy Wynette song, Jack Number Two did not run like water through a mountain stream when I had told him I was pregnant. I had dreaded a panicked, “So what are you planning to do?” but it never came. He reached for me and I leaned into him, all warm and solid, like the ground on a hot day. Not even twenty-four hours passed when he proposed, telling me that he put an engagement ring on layaway at Green’s Pawn Shop. “A golden ring with one tiny little stone?” I sang. He looked confused: “I picked out the best I could afford.”
“Ok, so no fast ones for the first dance then,” Jack says. “That rules out ‘My Maria’ too.” While no one ever calls me by my Christian name, I can’t get mad that he’s been putting thought into this.
“You know, your grandma and I were also only nineteen when we got married,” Grampa had said when I told him and Grandma the news. “You two are getting your start on your real adult lives a little early is all.”
My grandparents like this Jack, even though he prefers the style of country music that came “after Garth Brooks ruined everything.” They certainly like him a lot better than Jack Number One.
The first Jack, though. My Tormentor. I learned the hard way that, at least sometimes anyway, love is very much a burning thing. When I found a love note addressed to him in his glove-box. When my neighbour, Trish, said she could have sworn it was him walking down the street holding hands with another girl. And so many tears. I even had to wear sunglasses for a week one time because I popped vessels in my eyes. But the swirling sensation in my stomach and the tingling in my entire body when he touched me. And the pure joy during the “on” intervals where I was convinced he was mine forever.
Jack Number Two is indisputably good. He even patched the hole in Grandma and Grampa’s roof without anyone asking. And he dotes on me. He nearly ripped out his shoulder winning me a giant stuffed tiger at the ball toss game at the fair.
Grandma and Grampa felt that it was God himself looking out for me when Jack Number One was sent away to the clink for a few months. “The Lord knew you didn’t need that craziness in your life,” Grandma had said. “Now, you can concentrate on finding a nice boy. Instead of repeating the mistakes your mother keeps making.”
Even my mother discouraged me from waiting for Jack Number One. “If I had a chance to do everything over,” she said, “I would go for a good decent man and just enjoy a solid, comfortable relationship, even if it was a little boring.”
Jack Number Two tries again. “There’s a Vince Gill ballad…”
“Ugh. No. Everyone keeps telling my cousin that he looks like Vince Gill. I don’t want to picture Todd’s fat smug face when we’re out there dancing.”
I had a first-hand view of what happens when a relationship is based entirely on passion. For about a year, back in grade school, I lived with my mother and the eighth or so love of her life. She started off being “The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA” but it wasn’t too long before I saw what happens “When the Tingle Becomes a Chill.”
“Ha! This one clearly isn’t going to be the song we pick,” I laugh when Merle Haggard’s “It’s Not Love (But It’s Not Bad)” comes on the jukebox.
My childhood was spent with country songs swirling out of the HiFi in my grandparents’ orange and brown family room and from the a.m. radio and 8-track player in their old wood panelled station wagon. I always wondered which of the chronicles of relationships in song form would ultimately describe my romantic future. The people in these songs always seemed to get batted around by passions they could not control. I hoped I wouldn’t end up being a cheater, like the cheerful adulteress in “Heaven’s Just a Sin Away,” or like the repentant one in “Now, I Lay Me Down to Cheat.” I did expect that the person I ended up marrying would inspire tremendous passion in me. Where we wouldn’t be able to wait to get “Behind Closed Doors.” A love so grand that the loss of it would necessarily plunk me into despair. Like the protagonist in “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love With You” but hopefully not causing me to drink myself to death, like the one in “If Drinking Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will).”
“Jesus, this is bleak,” Jack Number Two says, his brow rumpled and eyes squinting at the jukebox. “I feel bad for the other lady in this song— the one in the relationship he is describing as ‘not love but not bad’ to the one he is still mooning over.”
“Yeah. If Merle was describing his real-life relationship, he should have kept that to himself, out of respect for the poor lady. Instead of passing that along to the woman he’s no longer with.”
“Not love but not bad” seems to be exactly what our reverend is hoping Jack Number Two and I will endeavour towards in our marriage. When we went through the weekend premarital class at our church, Reverend Allen was adamant that what people describe as passionate love is “just plain old lust.” And lust means nothing in the long run, because, according to Reverend Allen. “It’s like investing all you have into a little two-seater sports car when what you need is a solid pick-up truck.”
True love, Reverend Allen reminded us, is a decision you make every day to commit and put in the work. Which Jack Number Two and I are vowing to do.
“How about the Randy Travis song, ‘Forever and Ever, Amen’?” I ask.
Jack Number Two crunches a ketchup-dipped fry and I see tears in his eyes. “You know,” he says after a moment, “I’m just so happy right now.”
I hear Grandma bragging on the phone when I return home, “Those two are just crazy about each other.”
by Angela James
“It’s Not Love (But It’s Not Bad)” was a number one hit on the 1972 country charts for Merle Haggard and the Strangers. In addition to having one of the best opening lines ever, this song frankly explores the messy yet familiar situation where the person you desire and the person you settle down with are not the same. This story is directly inspired by this song and pays loving tribute to its place in the country canon.
The waitress gives us one of those thin-lipped scowls as she passes our table. Even though I really want a refill on my Coke, I get it. Young people sharing a plate of fries is the universal formula for a bad tip.
“This is the song we should use! Pretty much everyone loves Alan Jackson,” says Jack Number Two, nodding towards the jukebox.
We are trying to pick out “our” song for the first dance. With my Grandma and Grampa funding our wedding shindig at the Legion in two weeks, it is coming down to the crunch.
We had arrived at the truck stop with our lists written out. All of Jack Number Two’s suggestions so far have been new country radio ditties about small towns, dirt roads, traditional values, etc. Not a single real country song in the bunch.
I’m sure a better woman would experience the love of a good guy like Jack Number Two as a burning ring of fire that torments and transforms her and would embrace the songs that bring him joy. But I have not lost my mind over Jack Number Two. It’s ok. Maybe it’s even good. My grandparents dealt with enough foolishness with my mother. That’s how they got stuck raising me. And I have already experienced enough foolishness myself.
Seriously, though, how am I supposed to jump for joy about lyrics going on about how it’s all right to be a little bitty? When my whole frigging life is already little and is getting even bitty-er? “I think that song might be too fast,” I tell Jack Number Two.
“Well,” he says, “people might want to watch something livelier than us just slow dancing.”
“If we want something a bit faster, maybe we should just be honest and go with ‘She’s Having My Baby,’” I tell him. That gets a scowl, making me feel mean as I often do when we disagree.
Unlike the “Unwed Fathers” in the Tammy Wynette song, Jack Number Two did not run like water through a mountain stream when I had told him I was pregnant. I had dreaded a panicked, “So what are you planning to do?” but it never came. He reached for me and I leaned into him, all warm and solid, like the ground on a hot day. Not even twenty-four hours passed when he proposed, telling me that he put an engagement ring on layaway at Green’s Pawn Shop. “A golden ring with one tiny little stone?” I sang. He looked confused: “I picked out the best I could afford.”
“Ok, so no fast ones for the first dance then,” Jack says. “That rules out ‘My Maria’ too.” While no one ever calls me by my Christian name, I can’t get mad that he’s been putting thought into this.
“You know, your grandma and I were also only nineteen when we got married,” Grampa had said when I told him and Grandma the news. “You two are getting your start on your real adult lives a little early is all.”
My grandparents like this Jack, even though he prefers the style of country music that came “after Garth Brooks ruined everything.” They certainly like him a lot better than Jack Number One.
The first Jack, though. My Tormentor. I learned the hard way that, at least sometimes anyway, love is very much a burning thing. When I found a love note addressed to him in his glove-box. When my neighbour, Trish, said she could have sworn it was him walking down the street holding hands with another girl. And so many tears. I even had to wear sunglasses for a week one time because I popped vessels in my eyes. But the swirling sensation in my stomach and the tingling in my entire body when he touched me. And the pure joy during the “on” intervals where I was convinced he was mine forever.
Jack Number Two is indisputably good. He even patched the hole in Grandma and Grampa’s roof without anyone asking. And he dotes on me. He nearly ripped out his shoulder winning me a giant stuffed tiger at the ball toss game at the fair.
Grandma and Grampa felt that it was God himself looking out for me when Jack Number One was sent away to the clink for a few months. “The Lord knew you didn’t need that craziness in your life,” Grandma had said. “Now, you can concentrate on finding a nice boy. Instead of repeating the mistakes your mother keeps making.”
Even my mother discouraged me from waiting for Jack Number One. “If I had a chance to do everything over,” she said, “I would go for a good decent man and just enjoy a solid, comfortable relationship, even if it was a little boring.”
Jack Number Two tries again. “There’s a Vince Gill ballad…”
“Ugh. No. Everyone keeps telling my cousin that he looks like Vince Gill. I don’t want to picture Todd’s fat smug face when we’re out there dancing.”
I had a first-hand view of what happens when a relationship is based entirely on passion. For about a year, back in grade school, I lived with my mother and the eighth or so love of her life. She started off being “The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA” but it wasn’t too long before I saw what happens “When the Tingle Becomes a Chill.”
“Ha! This one clearly isn’t going to be the song we pick,” I laugh when Merle Haggard’s “It’s Not Love (But It’s Not Bad)” comes on the jukebox.
My childhood was spent with country songs swirling out of the HiFi in my grandparents’ orange and brown family room and from the a.m. radio and 8-track player in their old wood panelled station wagon. I always wondered which of the chronicles of relationships in song form would ultimately describe my romantic future. The people in these songs always seemed to get batted around by passions they could not control. I hoped I wouldn’t end up being a cheater, like the cheerful adulteress in “Heaven’s Just a Sin Away,” or like the repentant one in “Now, I Lay Me Down to Cheat.” I did expect that the person I ended up marrying would inspire tremendous passion in me. Where we wouldn’t be able to wait to get “Behind Closed Doors.” A love so grand that the loss of it would necessarily plunk me into despair. Like the protagonist in “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love With You” but hopefully not causing me to drink myself to death, like the one in “If Drinking Don’t Kill Me (Her Memory Will).”
“Jesus, this is bleak,” Jack Number Two says, his brow rumpled and eyes squinting at the jukebox. “I feel bad for the other lady in this song— the one in the relationship he is describing as ‘not love but not bad’ to the one he is still mooning over.”
“Yeah. If Merle was describing his real-life relationship, he should have kept that to himself, out of respect for the poor lady. Instead of passing that along to the woman he’s no longer with.”
“Not love but not bad” seems to be exactly what our reverend is hoping Jack Number Two and I will endeavour towards in our marriage. When we went through the weekend premarital class at our church, Reverend Allen was adamant that what people describe as passionate love is “just plain old lust.” And lust means nothing in the long run, because, according to Reverend Allen. “It’s like investing all you have into a little two-seater sports car when what you need is a solid pick-up truck.”
True love, Reverend Allen reminded us, is a decision you make every day to commit and put in the work. Which Jack Number Two and I are vowing to do.
“How about the Randy Travis song, ‘Forever and Ever, Amen’?” I ask.
Jack Number Two crunches a ketchup-dipped fry and I see tears in his eyes. “You know,” he says after a moment, “I’m just so happy right now.”
I hear Grandma bragging on the phone when I return home, “Those two are just crazy about each other.”