Okay Rick, here ya go...

"I didn't know what he meant, and when I asked, he couldn't or wouldn't tell me. Years later I read of the sin-eaters who were told to be common in the Appalachian Mountains. When there was a death in the family, food was laid out on the corpse and that night the sin-eater would eat it, consuming not just the food, but the deceased's earthly sins as well. I believe that he saw Hank as a sin-eater, taking on all of the trials and tribulations and burdens of his audience, all the broken hearts and burntup crops and empty bottles, all the broken promises and outright lies that life can deal up to you. Until they grew too heavy. Until he was taking up the slack with drugs and alcohol and then when that didn't work he just couldn't go on with it anymore. I'll never get out of this world alive, he had sung."

So you have a person of whom his own wife said, "I'd see him driving towards his house, he looked so lonesome, he looked like he'd rather go anyplace than home." A person who, after his death, made Johnny Horton say "That's Hank trying to get in touch." every time the windows would rattle. A person for whom MissAudrey, spina bifida, alcoholism, and even impotence, made quicksand of the ground he walked on. Not so much a Roy Head or a Tommy Tucker, where self-control took a backseat to talent. Just a man who happened to live what he sang.

Now, you can follow the academic line all the way back to Plato if you want, where these imaginings would only be considered the lowest rung on the ladder of knowledge, and supposedly would yeild the lowest degrees of truth. Regardless of the Tripartite Soul, these artists have little or no relevance when compared with others of their time.

So, in comparison, back to Johnny Horton. He would be a Williams contemporary. (Hell, they shared a woman, they might as well share this.) Listen to "All for the love of a Girl" or "The Mansion You Stole", then listen to "Alone and Forsaken" or "I Can't Escape From You". Somehow the academic rationale doesn't fit. You don't get the feeling that ol'Johhny has 'been there' even with the mocking and condescending tone of his "girl".

Dylan makes a step in that direction, but I'm not sure that he'll make the entire journey. Everybody gives a little sigh at "My Back Pages", but for sin-eater status, he's got a ways to go. (This may very well be a case of ignorance because I know virtually nothing of Dylan save what mainstream has spoonfed the radio) Another that comes to mind of late is Kurt Cobain, supposedly a voice of a generation that found the burden too great to bear. I'll leave the commensurate drug use up to someone else, but where Hank (and Kurt too, for that matter) seemed to be using to escape the sins, others used (not naming any names) called them on.

Okay. So I'll step back with the target on my ass to give you a clear shot, but I'm still happy to be absolved.

~JE