Reading the title, we understand that Jimi Hendrix is
the central musical figure in the story. Do the characters compare him to other
musical icons? Yes, an anecdote involving Hank Williams leads a perplexed
narrator to tell to his father:
“Hank Williams and Jimi Hendrix don’t have much in
common[.]”
For the narrator’s father, what the two musicians have
in common is their intimate knowledge of heartaches.
The father deplores his son’s ignorance and then
shifts to the subject of music. This leads the father to share his personal
take on instrumentation. The drums are the culprits, largely responsible for
the younger generation’s insensitivity. He pleads for more piano, more guitar,
more saxophone.
What technical details does the narrator mention? Reverberation
is meaningful. The anthem’s first bend is ritualistically synchronized with the
father’s entrance.
What relation do the characters have with the guitar? Both
father and son are aware of its difficulty. The mother gives an honest account
of what it was like to be wooed by her guitar-learning husband. As for the young
narrator, he knows he would like to play the instrument, but he envisions it as
a private affair between his senses and his imagination.
Now let’s go back to the performance mentioned in the
title. What extra-musical sounds does the narrator associate with Jimi Hendrix?
They range from motorcycles (hallucinatory and real) to the father’s drunken humming
and weeping.
There is also the question of context and medium. Played
on the house stereo, the tape eventually gets worn out. Later on, the
characters hear the revisited anthem during a dangerous car ride as a radio DJ
plays the request. Fragments of the performance are heard in memories and in
dreams.
How do the characters relate to the anthem and its
reinterpretation? According to the narrator, his father “was the perfect
hippie.” According to the father, “Indians are pretty much born soldiers
anyway.” Covering the psychedelic and martial aspects of the interpretation,
these statements reinforce the characters’ connection to the Woodstock
performance.
We mentioned Hank Williams earlier. Did the same
process of identification apply to the narrator’s parents when they heard the
country waltz ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry?” As the father recounts his first
dance with his wife, he tells his son: “We were in this cowboy bar. We were the
only cowboys there despite the fact that we’re Indians.” The answer is yes.
Identification is quick, simple, natural and ironic to the extreme.
Jimi’s power is real and enduring. He brings war-torn
skies to your home. He is a “snowplow” in a snowstorm. He breaks up a marriage
from his grave. And his presence is such that it can temporarily cure a man’s
solitude. Or perhaps not.
As the narrator reflects on his father’s reactions to
music, he remarks: “Music had powerful medicine.” What other examples of
music’s special properties do we find in the text? Traditional songs have a healing
power. Traditional dance can be half love dedication half personal preservation.
Later, the narrator finds a special kind of knowledge
in Robert Johnson’s blues. This knowledge transcends time and culture, as he is
able to connect his experience to the past experiences of the bluesman.
The narrator is anxious to connect his dreams with
reality. After having dreamt about it, he verifies the weather conditions of
the festival in whatever films he can find. Later, in a reverse move, he makes
a conscious decision to let a dream linger on. Tensions between dreams and
actual experience are at the heart of the story. With the help of music, the text
becomes an interface between different levels of consciousness.
Click here to listen to a Jimi and Hank mash-up.
Alexie,
Sherman. “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi
Hendrix Play the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock.” The Lone Ranger and Tonto
Fistfight in Heaven, Grove Press, 2013, pp. 24-36
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