Fifty or more

Scott Miller left a thousand fragments of his soul scattered through his lyrics.

Not buried like treasures, I think, because he never hid them.  He sowed them like seeds, he scattered them haphazardly.  If a phrase was evocative and meaningful for him, he didn't try to make it more universal – he used it.

He knew some of those seeds might find fertile ground in people who had shared his experiences:  if you had read James Joyce or T.S. Eliot, or watched a particular Star Trek episode, or studied engineering, you might recognize a phrase and clearly understand why it was meaningful in the context of the lyrics.  There were perhaps a few dozen fans who cared deeply enough to identify and catalogue the specimens; who picked up the seeds, recognized allusions, and gave that recognition back to him.

But even more of those seeds were fragments of his own life, imagery drawn from his experiences or his dreams.  Carefully crafted turns of phrase – I picture a chisel carving shards from his life, "turning" phrases as wood turns on a carpenter's lathe.  "Everything on this album is on purpose," he once warranted.

Perhaps a seed might find soil where it could take root and grow in a different direction.  He once wrote something like this:  even if you didn't recognize why an image was personally meaningful to him, he hoped that maybe the words that were so resonant for him would evoke something in you.

In early June, I wrote a long essay about Scott and Charlie Brown, and I touched upon the song The Red Baron.

Here's something I missed.

I never knew the words Nan Becker was singing... those hauntingly beautiful backup vocals.  I never heard those words clearly until this weekend.

"Fifty or more."  When the words came clear, the reference was instantly clear, because I owned a particular album when I was 8 years old.  I still have it – the only children's album that I still have, the only one I somehow couldn't part with.  Snoopy and His Friends the Royal Guardsmen (song available here).

     Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more,
     The bloody Red Baron is rolling up the score...

My feeling was not the feeling of a puzzle piece falling into place, or an academic riddle solved.  Yes, another layer of the song's meaning was unlocked for me, but that wasn't important.

My feeling was that of the lonely child I used to be... the kid who was called "genius" by other kids who didn't mean it as a compliment.  The 8-year-old boy who never had a friend who loved Peanuts in quite the way I did, with all of its subtext that was mostly intended for adult readers.  My friends liked Peanuts, but loved other things.  Sure, they watched the Charlie Brown TV specials, they probably read the comic strips often enough.  But they didn't get so much out of Peanuts that they owned this album as a child.

Now I know, almost beyond any doubt... Scott owned it too.

How many hundreds of these pieces of himself did he scatter to the wind, sung aloud in performance after performance?  How many seemed to go unnoticed, unremarked?  How often did he wonder whether anybody ever actually got it?  In all the years of openness to his fans, of answering mail, of "Ask Scott" columns, was that one of the things he hoped for?

I am no longer the lonely child I used to be, the child that Scott made me remember.  But there is still a thing I love that nobody in my life – nobody physically present in my life – really shares with me.  This music, unlike any other music.

Damn it.  Now who's going to drive away the loneliness?

Addendum (7/29/2013):

Two of Scott Miller's friends and bandmates graciously responded:

Gil Ray:  Funny thing regarding Scott and Peanuts.  At least a couple of times he described his frustration with record companies etc... like Lucy holding the football, and always pulling it away before Charlie Brown could kick it. Sad... but also funny, I think.

We once played an office Xmas party for one of Scott's workplaces. [Linus and Lucy, a bonus track on Big Shot Chronicles,] was the only christmas-y song we could muster!

Nan Becker:  Scott loved the Peanuts cartoon and watched the specials faithfully as a little boy. We talked about the "50 or more" line when we were learning the song. He discussed the theme of idealism and disappointment when ideals are abandoned or rejected. The Red Baron earned a fearful reputation yet also great respect from his enemies. He represented a kind of ideal for the perfect enemy; he needed to be destroyed but he was still admired for his prowess. The "50 or more" was intended to reference the Snoopy song as a musical joke. It was a song that Scott heard first at our house and then bought the 45 for his own.

Scott especially admired Snoopy. I think that it was Snoopy's perseverance (in Snoopy's imagination) against the odds of a terrible foe that Scott enjoyed. This and the facts of Snoopy himself: a dog that was aware of history, was wilier than his owner and lived a vivid inner life that no other dog could relate to. He was unique and something of a loner because of it, much like Scott. Once strange heroes like The Red Baron and Snoopy are gone or no longer respected "who's gonna say you can't do this to me?"

There's so much in just one song.  One more thing that Nan's comments brought to my mind is the Christmas truce... "Merry Christmas, mein friend."  An ideal enemy with honor, who won't kill you, not today, and you know you can rely on his word and drink a root beer together.  He'll shoot you down next time, of course – nothing personal, old chap! – but not tonight.  (That girl was my first love.  She honorably warned me, before the first kiss, not to fall in love with her.)

Addendum (7/26/2013):

One of the comments that I received elsewhere about this (thanks, Terry) led me to an afterthought...  The seeds he sowed.  They have hooks like thistles, guitar hooks, lyrical hooks.  Over many years, those resonant, perfectly turned phrases have become a part of my internal vocabulary.  I can no longer think of letting it go without being reminded that all advice is ways of saying "let it go."  I think just about the only thing I can do is look down from time to time, and when I see a dandelion puff in my hand, gently blow on it.