We seem to be in a post-hypocrisy world. Well, not so much post-hypocrisy as post-consequences of said hypocrisy. The bread and butter of online discourse has been about exposing the inconsistencies of others for so long that it has ceased to mean anything anymore. We may feel self-satisfied that someone on our side has "destroyed" a political opponent but such rhetoric never sticks. No one is ever destroyed, they just keep coming back.
No doubt that was what happened following the meeting of the Harper Valley P.T.A. While I'm sure that the Taylors, Mr. Baker, the widow Jones, Mr. Harper and Shirley Thompson were all shame-faced as they left this meeting, did Mrs. Johnson destroy any of them? I'm sure they all came back, ready for more gossip, rumour and innuendo to be spread out. In fact, its very poor sequel from 1984 indicates that very little changed other than the now grandmotherly Mrs Johnson (her junior high school-aged daughter must've married and/or given birth at quite a young age) is now far more God-fearing and, naturally seeing eye-to-eye much more with her old adversaries. Instead of making them be more like her, she became just like them.
For my money, though, the more interesting character is the schoolgirl whose mother has been causing all this friction round Harper Valley Jr. High. When the song begins, she comes home with a note from the P.T.A. and it seems like it's going to be all about her behaviour at school, getting up to no good with the boys, flaunting herself in scantilly clad garments and so forth. It is only in its second verse that we discover that it's her mother whose been causing a scandal in the neighbourhood. Then, the girl reveals herself to have been present at the P.T.A. meeting and even admits to being the one weaving this story all along. Quite why she chose to address herself in the third person earlier is a question no one seems to have an answer for. (In all likelihood, songwriter Tom T. Hall never thought about it)
This teenager seems relatively well adjusted for someone whose father has passed on and whose mother has seen half the bedrooms in the Harper Valley district. Isn't she mortified — and with far greater reason than the town's many busybodies? At the best of times teens find their parents to be intolerable and this is goes for those of us whose folks are perfectly normal. Yet, this girl is in her mum's corner all the way. She's proud of the fact that she "socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A.". Could this lass be cut from the same cloth as her free spirited mother? So, while "Harper Valley P.T.A." does its part for feminist empowerment, it doesn't quite manage to nail the generation gap. Fair enough though, it's not as if one song is meant to be all things to all people. Nevertheless, I think even a nod to some tension between mother and daughter would have made things more captivating.
Part country-pop delight, part novelty song, it's perhaps easy to both over and underestimate "Harper Valley P.T.A.". While there's little to dislike about its laid back tune and Jeannie C. Riley's classic southern vocal, it's surprisingly inessential for such a huge hit that has had a life of its own in the years since. While Tom Breihan does his utmost to make a case that it is an extraordinary work of art (even if I'm not quite buying what he's selling), I fall more in the camp of seeing it as an enjoyable little piece that overachieved a little in hitting number on both the RPM charts and on the Hot 100 down south. Don't get me wrong: I'm grateful to pop listings of the past that had room for such singles to thrive, I just don't know what young people of the time would have made of it. Country music from this period seldom had kids in mind and this legendary track of a feisty, independent older woman and her daughter who doesn't do much but observe from the sidelines is no exception.
No comments:
Post a Comment