Country Music Reclamation Project: A-11

I read today that this fall’s college freshmen will have always had GPS as part of their lives. They will have never known the experience of getting lost, of staring at a map, of the humiliation of having to stop and ask for directions — and of course, will never have had the need to figure out where they are on their own. We’ve come a long way from life without indoor plumbing, electricity, cable TV, home computers, iPods and wi-fi. So why are some of us so nostalgic for life before convenience?

The jukebox has survived this time of innovation, but barely. I can barely remember the last time I played one in a bar or restaurant, and that was a CD jukebox. The ability to play the song you need to hear at that moment, to tap into whatever feeling that song evokes, has always been important. And the jukebox plays an enormous role in country music, both as subject (Lattie Moore’s Between the Jukebox and the Phone presents a dilemma that no one born this century will understand: should he spend his last dime on a song or a call home?), or as a means of distribution.

Buck Owens was a king of the jukebox, with his many hit singles and his ability to make you tap your feet while crying in your beer. A-11 is an awkward song, mournful and sentimental, much like you’d imagine the drunk wandering over to see what songs you’re picking and weighing in with his story for each one. The line “I just came in here through force of habit/I don’t intend to spend too much time in here” is loaded with disingenuousness. This is a guy who comes in regularly, waiting for someone to play A-11 so that he can reopen the wound, and relive the love he’s lost.

A-11 (recorded by Buck Owens)
written by Hank Cochran

I don’t know you from Adam
But if you’re gonna play the jukebox
Please don’t play A-11.

I just came in here from force of habit
I don’t intend to spend too much time in here
But I heard you matchin’ for the music
And if you play A-11, there’ll be tears.

I don’t know you from Adam
But if you’re gonna play the jukebox
Please don’t play A-11.

This used to be our favorite spot
And when she was here it was heaven
It was here she told me that she loved me
And she always played A-11.

I don’t know you from Adam
But if you’re gonna play the jukebox
Please don’t play A-11.

So few words, and yet, when blanketed by the steel guitar and enveloped in that Ken Nelson Capitol Records sound, it could choke up the whole bar, making everyone feel lonesome and lost. And there’s no GPS for that feeling.

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