Another song that Martinez performed, and explained that he wrote after meeting a woman literally named Texas Flowers, is A Girl Named Texas. The metaphor of the state with a female is thus made plain, even if one does not know the tale behind the song’s origin. It opens: "She’s my favorite senorita on a warm fiesta night /A breeze along the Frio underneath the pale moonlight /A cattle rancher’s daughter and a river you can’t tame /Love everything about her Texas is her name."
Note how I stated that the expected- like pale moonlight- has to be subverted. It is, in that we get what is underneath the moonlight is a breeze along the Frio- presumably a topographical feature (one of many used as metaphor’s for the female body of Texas). We then get a subversion of the trite bull or horse that can’t be tamed with that of a river. The rest of the song also has similar familiarities and subversion that, even as a literal poem, displays a good skill with words and how they work to form ideas and images in the audience’s mind.
Not all of the songs of Martinez are so manifestly cleverly wrought. Others seem rather straightforward. Such is The Armadillo Song, which feels like a 1950s or 1960s nonsense tune, like "The Purple People Eater," "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," or "The Yardbirds’ Over Under Sideways Down." The refrain is the catchy alliterative ‘There’s a big armadillo in the middle of a little old country road.’ But the whole song is rife with such assonant and alliterative words that tell a rather straightforward tale of life on the road, but memorably so, since the wording is so memorable. There are other catchy songs that combine, reuse, and offer other strategies of lyric and musical interplay (including bilingualism for rhyming and alliterative effects not doable in English alone) that are memorable. Among them are "Tonight At Fiesta," "Just Like The Moon," "Lone Starry Night," "If I Didn’t Care," "Spinning Our Wheels," "Every Day Is Christmas," "All Hat And No Cattle," "Cherry Springs Swing," "Saturday Night In A Redneck Town," "Boys With Guitars…Real Fast Cars," and "What Good Is I Love You."
The last song mentioned displays a technique that is underused in poetry and songwriting, and that is negation. But, this song is not a full negation, but a sideline use of ignorance. Full negation would be writing something like, ‘I love your blue eyes not,’ or ‘It isn’t your lips that draw me.’ Instead, look at how Martinez equivocates: "What good is the anger if it ain’t worth the fight?/What good is a sunset if you can’t see the light?/ What good is the Bible if it ain’t never been read /And what good is I love you if it ain’t never been said."
Article comments
1 - Mary Fran
As someone who has been a fan of john Arthur martinez since I first heard him on Nashville Star, I was delighted to read Dan Schneider's comments. John Arthur is so under appreciated by the mainstream music industry. I hope this column will prompt more people to listen to, appreciate and support him.
2 - Josh
As a long time reader of Cosmoetica, all I can say is - this article had better be an April Fools' Day joke, five months and several days early.