Master Blueprints # 30: “Mama Take This Badge from Me, I Can’t Use It Anymore”

(Personal reflections inspired by Bob Dylan songs)

Song: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”
Album: Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Release Date: July 1973

Pulling into the work parking lot this past Monday after my standard 40-minute commute, I slipped into a vacant spot next to a familiar pickup truck.  After shutting off the car, grabbing my laptop, and briefly collecting my new-workweek thoughts, I stepped out into a warm summer breeze and started walking into the office.  As I passed the rear of that truck, however, I suddenly found myself uncharacteristically stopping in my tracks.  I did this to read the fine print on a bumper sticker that, for whatever reason, caught my eye with large bold print which declared “Don’t Obey!”.  With my full attention, the fine print then went on to read “- more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion (C.P. Snow).”

Now, I’ve walked past this truck quite often on my way in and out of the office, seeing as it was purchased at least a few years ago by a colleague.  However, with my mind typically elsewhere, I’d not taken in this bumper sticker – bold print, fine print, none of it - until that moment.  Considering the circumstances, which I will get to soon enough, I found this out-of-the-box moment rather fascinating.  Anyhow, after reading and mulling over some, I continued into the office and set up shop.  But even after logging into the laptop and jotting down a few notes to put my priorities in proper order for the workday ahead, I could not get that quote out of my head.  And so, I went back outside to the back of that truck, notepad and pen in hand, and proceeded to write it all down – verbatim - for this blog entry. 

What was it that had me so fixated on that Charles Percy (C.P.) Snow quote?  Yes, it’s an intriguing declaration to ponder, but it was more about the entire set of circumstances that hit me.  This was primarily because, on my way into work that morning I had made my choice on what album I was going to listen to in search of this week’s Master Blueprint inspiration: Bob Dylan’s 1973 soundtrack album Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, which was produced for the Sam Peckinpah movie of the same name.  I then commenced to listen to it from beginning to end as I drove in.  And the central theme to that movie?  You got it:  It’s captured in a nutshell on that bumper sticker.

It was the 3^rd time in a week that this general thought was thrust in my face.  The first was a Facebook video clip of a recent speech given by actor Matt Damon, whereby he made a very similar statement, noting among other key points that this was what our Founding Fathers did (these are after all interesting times, are they not?)  The second of course was in reflecting on the movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid on my drive into work.  The based-on-actual-events film portrays the lawman, Pat Garrett (James Colburn), struggling with his conscience while hunting down his old friend, now adversary, Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson), who is portrayed in contrast as a free-spirit of-a-man (“Billy, they don’t like you to be so free” as Bob Dylan sings it).  Obedient compromise vs. lawless integrity?  Yeah, that’s the general idea.  But after listening and contemplating all week, I’m now thinking…. not so fast. 

Spoiler alert: Skip the following paragraph if you wish to watch the movie before knowing the ending. 

The movie ends symbolically with Pat Garrett shooting at his own reflection in the mirror after the successful bounty killing of Billy the Kid.  Also symbolic is a boy throwing rocks at Garrett as he rides off on his horse, hinting at a younger, more innocent version of himself now disgusted with the older, compromised person he has become.  Side Note: Watching the movie now, it reminds me of Clint Eastwood’s excellent 1992 film Unforgiven, but in that Academy Award winner (Best Picture), Eastwood would flip the roles around; the outlaw heavy with guilty conscience, not so the ‘lawful’ sheriff.

Bob Dylan acts in the movie as the quirky sidekick character “Alias”, which is a tiny bit of comic relief for such a depressing movie.  But it’s his score that he will be best remembered for in relation to Peckinpah’s film, particularly one classic original song, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bWzyiU-S_w ), which strums along in the background as one of the lawman characters, played by Slim Pickens, comes to the realization he is dying from a bullet wound, his wife sobbing by his side. The scene humanizes this Western in a way that few scenes in the genre do. 

Only one other song in the soundtrack has lyrics, “Billy”, which is performed in several incarnations (Billy 1, 4 and 7).  The remainder of the songs are Tex-Mex-style instrumentals with names that evoke wild west scenes, such as “Turkey Chase”, “River Theme” and “Bunkhouse Theme” (the latter sounding very much as the inspirational guitar chords for Pete Townshend’s “God Speaks, Of Marty Robbins” off The Who album, Endless Wire).  This works like alchemy for a film with such powerful visual effect.  It’s an ideal album to play in the car as you make your way through beautiful open vistas, especially in the southwest. 

“Billy 1” (& 4 & 7) is an interesting song that complicates the general narrative of the film in a good way.  Other than the prior-mentioned line about being free, the lyrics do little to glorify William H. Bonney (aka Billy the Kid), in the fashion that Bob Dylan does for another 19^th century western outlaw, John Wesley Hardin, on his 1967 song and album of ~ the same name (Dylan adds a ‘g’ to the last name).   As with Pat Garrett, there’s a compromised man lurking in those lyrics, which include a line about killing a woman in El Paso, another line about people making advances on Billy the Kid’s spirit and soul, and the repeated Prodigal-Son-like refrain “Billy, you’re so far away from home”. “Billy 1” (& 4 & 7) makes me curious as to what the lyrics would have been if Dylan had written a song about the man hunting him down (the closest we get is the instrumental “Cantina Theme – Workin’ for the Law”).   It would have made for an interesting compare/contrast.

Speaking of Pat Garrett (again), I believe it’s no mistake that his name preceded Billy the Kid’s in the title of the movie.  Garrett’s role and character flaws are scoped out more than The Kid’s.  We see him getting angrier as the movie unwinds, not so much at Billy the Kid, but at himself.  Right, wrong, good, bad, abiding, not abiding, obedience, disobedience, truth, consequence….it all plays out in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.  These are themes which never get dated, at least for as long as we humans struggle with our humanity.

Which brings me back to that work-lot bumper sticker.  It’s been stirring up all sorts of thoughts this week.  For example, people who are saying these sorts of things in the United States these days are generally left leaning.  They are angry, and as I see it, rightfully so.  Yet only eight years ago it was the newly formed rightwing “Tea Party” that was rattling cages with comparable sentiments.  In Texas, as recently as 2 years ago, right-leaning common folk and GOP legislators were even initiating petitions and floor votes to succeed from the Union.  Along the same vein, the same type of crowd has been protesting confederate statues being removed from Southern campuses and parks; those depicted on the statues being the last ones who were successful at succession back in the 1860s.  Now that the shoe is on the other foot, those of right-leaning ideology shout ‘unpatriotic’ when, for example, football players kneel during the National Anthem.  Succession one day, patriotism the next.  Food for thought, ehh? 

Anyhow, from this multi-pronged point of view, that bumper sticker is politically neutral.  You kinda gotta take it a bit further with that core statement to make your allegiances clear.  You also kinda gotta know your current events when reading such sentiments to put it all into proper context.

One historical fact that hovers over Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is the settling of the West.  There was no longer room for free-roaming spirits like Billy the Kid in the late 19^th century.  Fences were being erected to make the case for large expanses of private property.  The government was asked to intervene for the property owners and to do so with force if necessary.  They obliged.  It’s a big reason why the civil service grew exponentially in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries: The property owners demanded it (not only to defend their land, but to map it, survey it, and connect it with a road network).  Side Note: Today 96% of Texas is privately owned, and there’s an insistence by many that the government now stay out of their faces.  More shoes switching feet. 

Since I had movie-watching on the brain this week, I began thinking of characters who defied the law on the big screen.  The first one who came to mind was Steve McQueen as Hilts (aka “The Cooler King”) in the classic World War II prison-camp movie, The Great Escape.  Here is a defiant, law-breaking (albeit Nazi prison camp law) role that seems to transcend political affiliation.  “The Cooler King” representing common ground?  Gotta start somewhere I suppose.  Billy the Kid on the other hand?  Now there’s a tricky one.  With all those shoes switching feet back and forth in the past 100-plus years, it’s hard to discern who if anyone would have his back if he were defying the law in the southwest today (unless perhaps if he was taking over federal buildings on public land).

The thought I found myself lingering on the most this week in relation to that bumper sticker is the position of many in the religious right, who adhere to a strict interpretation of the Bible in abiding to the law (i.e. Romans 13:1).  That is of course, unless the law is in contradiction to God’s will.  I can understand this to some degree.  The problem however then becomes your own interpretation of God’s will.  Getting it wrong has gotten a lot of civilizations into big trouble over the centuries.  That’s where conscience must kick in.  We all intuitively know right from wrong and hopefully we all know somebody with integrity who can help guide us when a touch of grey insidiously seeping its way in.  It can mean the difference between an act of kindness vs. self- centeredness.  On the bigger picture, it can mean the difference between peace and war.  What truly amazes me about the religious-right is its acceptance of leaders with all sorts of serious human faults if those leaders connect with their own personal agenda That’s how the grey seeps in.  Hey, I admit, this happens with any ideology, left or right.  But isn’t faith supposed to rise above the fray?

I’m not sure of the political affiliations of that parking lot pickup truck owner (we keep these sorts of opinions to ourselves, at least with each other), but based on the presence of that bumper sticker during the current events we are living right now, I have a pretty good idea.  Regardless, that quote brought out the politics in me this week, a topic I typically avoid, as I do try to keep this blog site generally upbeat and positive.  And yet, I’m fine with scoping out these thoughts this week, because they are fundamental to the story that is Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.  Bob Dylan typically avoids such subject matter as well, but I think he knew all along what he was getting himself into when he signed up to act and produce the music for this early 70’s flick. 

The original version of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” clocks in at 2 ½ minutes, unusual brevity for a Bob Dylan song.  However, in that brief span of time, it packs a wallop with straight-forward lyrics.  It’s the inevitable end game of a song when black and white turns an ugly shade of grey. As is the case of the bumper sticker, there’s plenty of grey in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, resulting in scene after scene of heavy, sad scenarios playing out.  It’s a good movie and soundtrack that gets you thinking, but in the end… all that grey is my take-home message. 

- Pete