Over the past few days, following the suggestions of Phil d’Conch, I’ve been focusing not on the lyrics of “Paducah Brown,” but on the circumstances in which I encountered the song. With the help of Copilot — a conversational system that’s very good at tracing implications, testing assumptions, and helping me separate what I actually remember from what I only think I remember — I’ve been able to clarify the structure of the memory more precisely. At times Copilot assisted by asking clarifying questions; sometimes we worked things out together; and sometimes its ability to follow networks of presuppositions and entailments carried the process forward in ways I couldn’t have managed on my own. It hasn’t supplied any lyrics or invented details — what it’s done is help me articulate the context of the memory as best I can.
Here is what now seems most solid:
- I probably heard the song first on radio or record.
- I did, at least once, probably have the lyrics in front of me. It was just that one song, typed or printed, not handwritten, on its own letter-sized sheet of paper.
- The person who showed me the lyrics was roughly my age at the time — someone I may have known, but not a close friend, and almost certainly not a teacher or mentor.
- I remember trying to memorize the first two stanzas. I got through those and then felt too tired to continue. The ballad had at least three stanzas, probably more.
- The ballad began and ended with Paducah Brown’s death. Given what Copilot was able to come up with regarding similar ballads of the time, I’m assuming the intervening stanzas probably focused on the why and how of the shooting.
That’s as accurate a reconstruction as I can make at this point. If any of this helps jog a memory or suggests a new angle of search, I’d be very grateful if you’d let me know.