I was a highwayman

Willie Nelson says:
I was a highwayman
Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

then Kris Kristofferson says:
I was a sailor
I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

after which Waylon Jennings says:
I was a dam builder
across the river deep and wide
where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and
around and around

and finally Johnny Cash concludes:
I fly a starship
across the Universe divide
and when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..


In this song Willie Nelson is a dude who robs ladies and kills soldiers. A bad ass. An outlaw. But eventually he gets caught, and hanged. But see, then his spirit returns, a bit later in History. Now he is Kris Kristofferson, who is by far the most likely sailor of the bunch. Now who can say how glorious it is to make a boat go around some land (I mean, what the fuck, are you gonna go through the land?), I guess in this chapter it's just he's kind of an idiot and he fucked some kind of thing up with the sails or jibs or whatever, I dunno, go ask some blue-blood yacht dude. Anyhow, you'd think this spirit was gone by now, since it got hanged and also drowned. But nope. It comes back, a bit further into History, this time in the person of Waylon Jennings, who got a hand from FDR what with the WPC building a gigantic dam. Here things might be said to get a little metaphorical. The place is called Boulder but it's getting filled with concrete. The Colorado was wild but they are taming it. Steel and water did collide, but at what cost? At the cost of one Waylon Jennings. Granted, he was clumsy and he was the guy who didn't do the smart thing and be extra careful while walking around on top of a giant not-yet-solidified dam. So anyhow now the spirit got hanged, drowned, and encased in what was at the time the largest man-made monument named after a vacuum in History. This brings us, dear reader, not to the present, because the present can't really mean anything to itself, now can it, so instead it brings us instead to the Future, in the person of Johnny Cash, starship pilot. He is flying the entire distance of the universe, not just lurkin' around outside a town, or going around some land in a boat in the water, or spanning the distance between two sides of an enormous gorge. As we well know the universe is finite and who knows what is on the other side. There are those who say it is the same, only backwards, only you can't even tell it's backwards, since you, too, are backwards. There are those who say it is just sort of boring. Nobody knows for sure. Johnny Cash doesn't even know for sure, but he has whittled down the possibilities to two: either he will become a highwayman again, thus starting the cycle anew, or, alternatively, and I'd like to put in my vote for more likely, he may become a single drop of rain. Here is where I like to imagine that every drop of rain used to be a highwayman, an inept sailor, a clumsy dambuilder, or an astronaut. One of those four. Nothing else. I myself, when I reach the other side, may turn into a single grain of sand. I think that is the fate of the musician, the logger, the banker, and the flight attendant. Whereas it has been demonstrated that piano tuners, butchers, systems analysts, and tinkerers shall return a single breath of air. We will all try to find a place to rest our spirits if we can, but chances are we will be back again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, only each time one step lower in a major scale, until we get almost back to the tonic again, at which point I suppose you should just restart the song because not even Johnny Cash could hit that bottom one if he tried.