Thanato-Musicology: Part 3

The best recipes begin with “fry one pound of bacon; reserve grease.” The best songs end with meaningful characters dying.

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Gram Parsons didn't leave a huge body of work before dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse. Of his limited recordings, my favorite has to be $1000 Wedding. Emmylou Harris's vocals give the effect of a church choir backing Parson's jumbled and conflated narrative of a jilted groom and a young, dead bride-to-be.

Parson's arrangement is sparse in comparison to Willie Nelson's lush rendering, produced by Ryan Adams and backed by The Cardinals on Nelson's album, Songbird. Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield's iteration falls somewhere in the middle.

I imagine that $1,000 bought a lot more throwing rice back in 1974; regardless, a delightful vein of seediness runs throughout the lyrics. I've had a five-figure wedding and a three-figure one. The joy, in my experience, was inversely correlated to the number on the price tag.

$1000 Wedding by Gram Parsons

Was one thousand dollars wedding, supposed to be held the other day
And with all the invitations sent
The young bride went away
When the groom saw people passing notes
Not unusual, he might say
But where are the flowers for my baby
I'd even like to see her mean old mama
And why ain't there a funeral, if you're gonna act that way
I hate to tell you how he acted when the news arrived
He took some friends out drinking and it's lucky they survived
'Cause he told them everything there was to tell there along the way
And he felt so bad when he saw the traces of old lies still on their faces
So why don't someone here just spike his drink
Why don't you do him in some old way
Supposed to be a funeral
It's been a bad, bad day
The Reverend Dr. William Grace
Was talking to the crowd
All about the sweet child's holy face and
The saints who sung out loud
And he swore the fiercest beasts
Could all be put to sleep the same silly way
And where are the flowers for the girl
She only knew she loved the world
And why ain't there one lonely horn and one sad note to play
Supposed to be a funeral
It's been a bad, bad day
Supposed to be a funeral
It's been a bad, bad day