Weltschmerz

 I’m listening to a song by John Prine while writing this, and he has a line in a song that goes;

      In a former life on a motel chair

      I was Charlie Parker’s teddy bear

I have wondered about that line before because sometimes, when I am steeped in weltschmerz, I too think that in a former life I was Charlie Parker’s teddy bear.  I always thought it would be a nice life.  Charlie Parker, for those who don’t know, was a saxophone player from the 40’s and 50’s who, along with Dizzy Gillespie, turned music on its metaphorical ear.  Bebop took jazz, and improvisational music in general, to a whole different level.  Charlie, or ‘Yardbird’ or just ‘Bird’, was nothing short of a master.  He played in jazz clubs, mostly in New York, and young, hipster, intellectuals would come and just stare at him slack -jawed.  Then, he would shoot up some heroine and go back to his hotel room.

Bird sans teddy bear

Sad to say, like a lot of creative people, and like a lot of jazz musicians in the 50’s, Charlie was a junkie.  His addiction eventually killed him (for a great movie about all of this, check out “Bird”, directed by Clint Eastwood.)

But, just think about being the teddy bear of the best jazz musician in New York in 1949, adored and lionized all along 52^nd Street, living in a swanky Hotel with a chair to call your own.  Sweet.

Is that what John Prine meant?  Was he referring to a stuffed animal sitting in a channel back waiting calmly until this strung out musician staggers into the room?  On the street below, cars have running boards, Harry Truman is president, men wear hats, South Pacific is playing on Broadway, Russia is developing an atomic bomb, people are beginning the long process of putting World War II, and its death toll of fifty million, in the rear view mirror.

Naughty, gaudy, haughty, bawdy, 42nd Street

And here he is, a stuffed bear sitting in a chair next to a stoned sax player in a motel room, while all of this is going on just a few floors below.  What a life.

Assuming of course, that this is what John meant by those two lines.  I’m sure they can’t just be fillers, or throwaways, or fluff.  Nah.

Hey, John Prine, if you read this, let me know, okay?

John Prine in his prime