End of Scene #3 [Song #5 "Riding the Dog"]

Pulls out harmonica and starts to play

[listen to the song "Rding the Dog" on this YouTubelink:

I apologize for the quality of this live performace recording]

Song 5: Riding the Dog (A dialogue between speaker and instrument)

Catfish: All right, so this is kind of an instrumental, with some spoken stuff thrown in and it’s about a Greyhound bus trip I took many years ago. And anybody who’s ever had the pleasure of riding a Greyhound bus knows it’s got the picture of the dog on the outside, and so they call it riding the dog, and that’s the name of the song, riding the dog

[SOLO]

Now perhaps I should explain, like I said this is a trip from Chicago, Illinois to Ames, Iowa several years ago and at the time, started in the morning, started the trip with a couple packs of cigarettes and a bottle of black velvet, and everything’s long gone by this point. And it’s late in the night, and you’re somewhere in the middle of Iowa.

[SOLO]

Now there’s really nothing to do this time of night [RESPONSE]

Except just look out the window [RESPONSE]

And start thinking things [RESPONSE]

And you start thinking ‘bout how things are gonna get better [RESPONSE]

Certainly can’t get any worse. [EXTENDED RESPONSE]

So everybody’s in the bus kind of thinking their own thoughts [RESPONSE]

Yeah (quiet chuckle) [EXTENDED RESPONSE]

And you start thinking if it’s worth it [EXTENDED RESPONSE]

Now I kind of figure, probably 90% of you really don’t know about hard times, I don’t know, but I figure one or two of you might be, so I’ll just keep talking.

[SOLO]

So yeah, you’re kind of wondering if it’s worth it [RESPONSE]

But really, you know the answer to that [RESPONSE]

It is, …eventually [EXTENDED RESPONSE]

But right now, you’re in the middle of Iowa [RESPONSE]

It’s 3 in morning [RESPONSE]

And there’s a long way to go [EXTENDED RESPONSE]

Yeah, you’re riding the dog

[SOLO]

Yeah that’s riding the dog [EXTENDED RESPONSE]

And finally you see the sign 10 miles to Ames

[SOLO]

And you’re there.

[end of song] pause.

Voice #1: But where are you?

Catfish: (obviously startled and a little scared at this voice seemly coming out of thin air): I’m here…..I’m right here, talking to you, I’m the one, I’m you’re man [the voices come from the two record player which are illuminated when the voices talk – also the records spin when they are talking and the sound comes out of the record player speakers]

Voice #2: You? Shoot, who the Hell are you?

Catfish: Ca..Ca..Catfish Bones, Sir.  This is an honor, I’m a huge fan

Voice #2: Fan? Fan! Well, in Heavens’ name, I’ve got me a Fan! Do you believe that, I’ve been dead almost 50 years, but I still got me a fan!

Voice #1: He might be a fan, but he’s just some young buck with an axe who thinks he knows it all, what do you know friend? Seriously what do you know about the Blues?

Catfish: (having regained his composure is confidant, smug even) The Blues aint nothin’ but a good man feeling bad

Voice #2: You got that right. As true now as when I said it

Voice #1: It aint the Blues boy, that aint why we’re here.

Catfish: But of course it’s the Blues, why else……….

Voice #1: I went to the Crossroads……….

Catfish:  But that’s’ just a song

Voice #1: Just a song? You hear that, he says it’s just a song! What do you know about songs?

Voice #2: Just a song? I could take my songs into any town I cared to go! Hell I went to Europe, had a wife, pretty little thing, had a house, Man I had all,

Catfish:  Yeh, I’ve read about how…..

Voice #2: Fuck you

Voice #1: Don’t get him mad like that, but you gotta understand what it was like, Man you’d come into town and the people were excited! The Blues were new, the Blues were Hot! You’d go to rent parties, and Jukes, people take into their homes and set you up real nice, pretty girls would throw themselves at you, and all you had to do was play your axe.  So you played with everything you had. You gave the Blues your soul, and in return the Blues gave you everything. Everything! man, everything!

Voice #2:Aint right for no man, aint natural to get ev’rything you want

Voice #1: Makes you do thing you shouldn’t, things you have to pay for later

Voice #2: Gotta pay for everything, What goes around, comes around

Voice #1:  Amen

Catfish: You mean you’re here to pay for your sins in life?

Voice #1: This aint no shrine, Boy. We cursed the Gods, This is our punishment

Voice #2: We’re being punished, son, go home

Catfish: I don’t believe that nonsense. Superstition, the Devil, curses, no way.  Its’ the music, that’s why you’re here. It has to be.  The music is real, your soul lives on, it keeps the music alive.

They’ve locked you up, but they can’t kill you, you are the soul of the music.  You are the spirit of the Blues, and I want to be a part of that.

Voice #1: They’re just songs

Catfish: Just songs? Pony Blues, Dark is the Night, Crossroads, Going Down Slow, Parchman’s Farm,  Mean Old World, Dust My Broom, Juke, Bright Lights, Big City, Stormy Monday, Mojo, Fattening Frogs for Snakes, those aren’t just songs.  No! They are what’s worth preserving. Punishment, that’s bullshit! You’re here to save something, something that’s unique, something that would be lost – the Blues! That’s why you’re here.

I remember when the Blues opened up a whole world for me – sure there was loneliness and poverty, but there was more, the Blues taught me perseverance, and dignity, honesty, respect, you gave that to me, you guy’s taught me what it was to be a man! In your songs I found Truth! In your songs, I found Wisdom!

 Voice #1: Wisdom?  He’s standing in a broom closet, shouting at a record player ‘bout Wisdom!

Voice #2: He’s one crazy cat.

Voice #1: We had Money, Booze, Girls, shit we had it all, what have you got?

Voice #2: Bad dreams, and a belly full of coffee beans.  Those days are gone man, give it up, they’re just songs, what are you getting out of this?

Voice #1: Aint no way to make a living now, nobody cares anymore

Voice #2: They were great songs

Voice #1: Yeh, but nobody would pay to hear that stuff any more

Voice #2: Nobody cares

Catfish: Nobody cares, you’re right, they’re just songs, nobody cares, nobody cares

(leaves room, then a long pause……….)

Voice #1: He wasn’t the one.

Voice #2: No.(pause)

Voice #1: We’ll find him; we’ll pass it along

The light turns off……………..