Buck Owens

The honky-tonk angels have a new soul to hold. One of my heroes, Buck Owens passed away today. To truly understand the impact of Buck, read this tribute penned several years ago by my pal Steve Deaton.

The Old Poet Teacher, at a Loss, Trying to
Justify The Ways of Buck Owens to the
Skeptical Freshmen of a Small Liberal
Arts College Somewhere up in Connecticut

I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
. . .
Things unattempted yet is prose or rhyme.
. . .
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert Eternal Providence
And justify the ways of God to men.
--Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I



I know, I know,
What can I say?
Yep, there’s a cliché
of the worst kind,
the images are predictable
and sometimes downright silly,
the rhyming is telegraphed
and so many generalities . . .

And if you post-pubescent
post-post-modernist poet wanna-bes
dare to try it, I’ll fry your asses in hog fat
and send you screaming down
into the abysmal hellfire darkness
of the academic f-word!

You think I’m kidding.

But something about Buck smells like coffee,
feels like late night truck stops
where the band has downed so much antacid,
so many Pall Malls, so much vegetable soup.

It burns like a good, cheap Bourbon
and has the texture of duct taped microphones.

I don’t know how else to say it.
But “Tiger by the Tail” moves me
more than Ezra Pound
who could never spin and pop
at 45 revolutions per minute
whirling out the Bakersfield swing
of liquid steel and shuffle . . .

Oh you great American poets
I like you best when I
don’t know why I like you.

So why Buck Owens?
His iniquities weigh heavy
against him and he is cursed.

I haven’t the foggiest.

Maybe it’s the polyester
draped over the warmth
of a tube mic two inches
from the centrifugal force
of a fluttering Celestion cone
hanging on for dear life
under the silver glittering grill
of a Fender Twin.

So much hum. So much crackle.

Oh you great American poets
you have moved me
but so few of your poems
are better than cigarettes.

But with his calculated, frozen silly grin
and a red, white, and blue guitar
as big as Whitman’s America,
Buck Owens fills me
like naphtha from a Zippo
and the initial crackle
of tobacco and wrapping
recoiling in little orange flames

and damn it’s good

Ahhh, Buck, you gap toothed silly bastard,
dammit you’re good.

Copyright 2001 Steve Deaton