"...nightfall with no place to sleep."

Last night I watched the Wim Wenders 1984 movie Paris, Texas. It’s about Travis, a man found wandering in the Mojave desert and his attempts to reconnect with his 8 year old son who he left 4 years ago. As they reconnect he decides to take the boy and try to find his estranged wife. I’d recommend it to anyone. One of my favorite aspects of the film was the drawn out shots of desert nothingness and views of LA. These shots are backed by slide guitar tunes that, while I’d never heard them before, were instantly recognizable. They play in our heads at the sight of the dry, dusty parts of the United States. It’s the soundtrack to poverty, lonesomeness, the desert.

The soundtrack was clearly influenced by Blind Willie Johnson’s 1930 song “Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground.” It’s one of the most mournful songs I’ve ever heard, possibly the most mournful. The lyrics, comprised of long, sad moans that you can feel vibrate in your chest are unintelligible. The guitar work is pretty sparse, just a guitar tuned to open D, played with a knife as a slide (as the legend goes). Sources say that the song, while not having any real lyrics, is about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, with the guitar being the preacher and the moans being the congregation’s response. This song is the blues; I’ve never heard it done better or more real.

In 1977 Carl Sagan compiled a collection of records to be included on the Voyager spacecrafts. The records were included in order to give a sample of the diversity of the sounds of Earth should any intelligent life come upon them. Along with greetings in 55 languages, the calls of various animals and sounds common to life on earth, he included 27 selections of popular music. “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” was included in order to represent a human expression of loneliness. In Sagan’s own words: “Johnson's song concerns a situation he faced many times, nightfall with no place to sleep. Since humans appeared on Earth, the shroud of night has yet to fall without touching a man or woman in the same plight.”

The song is posted below. Download it, sit back with a hot cup of coffee, stare out your window, listen and enjoy. If you don’t feel something from this, well I don’t know what to say.

www.mediafire.com/?3d2242l3e4d