When I Am An Old Man, I Shall Wear Black

[dbt]

When I am an old man, just any day now,
I shall wear black
And drive a rusty truck that rattles.
But you won’t hear that part
Because I shall be blasting Johnny Cash
Through an eighteen-inch subwoofer.

“How high’s the water, Mama?
Eight feet high and risin’.
How high’s the water, Papa?
She said it’s eight feet high and risin’.”

I shall laugh at the most inappropriate moments
To keep from crying for New Orleans
Where my country turned its back on America.
Where the Right Ones made it out
And the Wrong Ones got to go swimming.

I shall wear black, for it is the color
Of the Death Water that came in search
Of skin that matched its own.
Black, like the night that could not hold
The howls of the dogs abandoned.

Black like the hearts of the white men
Who ate their cake and strummed their faulty chords
While the music died in Jackson Square.
Black like the ashes of Thomas Jefferson’s dreams.
He was a fiddler, you know.

I shall wear black to remember the woman
Whose name I cannot recall, whose skin I cannot forget,
Who held her black clarinet up to Heaven
(Which is only a block off Bourbon, by the way)
And let her soul fly for tips.

Black like the skin of the old men
Who could barely lift their horns anymore
At Preservation Hall, but when they did,
God came down to get His groove on
And lit their joints with His finger.

When I am an old man, just any day now,
I shall wear black,
For it is the color of the future
Of a world that knows no New Orleans.

Yea, though I walk through the Valley of FEMA,
I shall fear no Evil, for it is way too late.
And I shall dwell in The House Of Blues forever,
Listening to the Neville Brothers.
Amen.



Remember New Orleans.