Saturday night live as Kevin Gordon shares his epic, unreleased (at the time) song “Colfax” during his Music Fog session in Nashville. Filmed at Marathon Recorders during the 2011 Americana Music Festival & Conference. Kevin is accompanied by Joe McMahan (guitar), Paul Griffith (drums), and Ron Eoff (bass). If you appreciate good songwriting, good poetry, good music and a good narrative, you cannot help but love this song. I don’t know about y’all, but in my universe, this is fuckin’ brilliant!
http://americansongwriter.com/2012/01/kevin-gordon-colfax/
“Colfax,” tells the story of Gordon’s African-American music teacher, Mr. Minifield, who stoically faces down the Ku Klux Klan while leading the band at a football game in Colfax, Louisiana. Gordon describes his childhood in a hypnotic narrative of vivid, plainspoken images, such as this description of a high school crush: “Valerie/ Played clarinet/ 13 going on 35, sexy/ In a hard way, like a 1st cigarette,/ Bourbon spilled on a bare thigh.”
“‘Colfax’ is based on an event I remember from seventh grade,” explains Gordon.
The song’s focal point is Gordon’s spoken narrative, which unravels the action. The vocals are rhythmic and methodical behind a laid-back drum beat, a plodding banjo, and distant guitar echoes. As the story unfolds, there’s humor along with poignancy in the lyrics. When the KKK is first viewed by the band members, a boy named Donald Lovelady says he thought they only came out at night. Then Gordon compares the red cross on the Klansmen’s white robes to “an image of the suffering Christ/ Airbrushed on the side of a missile.”
For some reason it felt important to use actual first and last names of some of the people who were there that day–a kind of factual grounding, I guess, more documentary; plus, I just liked the way it sounded.”
The song’s chorus is actually a second song title (“Step In Time”), a way of retaining the poetic purity of “Colfax,” leaving the main narrative a powerful and stand-alone thing all it’s own.
The lyrical climax is, of course, Minifield as he marches on, “Like there was somewhere better/ He was going/ But this was the only goddamned way to get there.” The “step in time” may be a literal reference to the marching band, but it’s also Minifield as he looks “straight ahead” and walks on in the face of racism and prejudice. He’s moving forward, just like history–and just like Gordon’s song.
I played trumpet in the band
In 7th grade, blasting out songs
At football games and fall parades
We’d ride the bus
To the small towns like Winfield,
Downsville, and Colfax—
In purple jackets and white slacks
We were the Braves—
We were the Jack Hayes Braves
Named after a dead administrator
And the noble ideal
Of the young Native American male–
School ambassadors
Of popular song and good will
Mr. Minifield
Was our director, skin the color
Of a brown paper sack, he was black
Trying to teach us white kids to play
But confronted every baton-breaking day
By juvenile delinquents, like Danny Amos
Who locked himself into Minifield’s office,
With my Ted Nugent double album;
Playing “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang”
Full-blast over the bandroom speakers
And I remember Minifield, just sitting there
Staring out into the air
From the podium, smoking a camel
Looking straight ahead
Imagining himself
Somewhere else, I’d guess
Where he’d be getting paid
More for less B.S.
Tomorrow morning
We’d be marching through
What’s ahead from what’s behind
Just another step in time
Valerie
Played clarinet
13 going on 35, sexy
In a hard way, like a 1st cigarette,
Bourbon spilled on a bare thigh–
(you could say she was ahead of the game)
She’d barely speak to me
So that 2-hour ride
Felt like an all-day tense erotic dream,
Staring out at the pine trees and red clay,
And the country stores where inevitably
An old dough-faced man would be standing outside–
Staring at us like his life going by
And was that her leg, was that her leg
Just brushing against mine?
Riding on the bus
Sitting next to Valerie Thrash
Between what’s ahead, what’s behind
Just another step in time
The morning was cold
The silver bell of my horn shining back
Convex reflections of faces and hands
And the yellow smear of the bus
While I blew out my spit valve,
Put the wax on my braces–
We were getting ready to play,
Standing in line, moving in formation.
First up, a Stevie Wonder song called Sir Duke,
About Ellington (I didn’t know that then),
Chameleon by Herbie Hancock–
Jungle Boogie by Kool and the Gang,
K.C. and the Sunshine Band—
Get Down Tonight–
That’s when I saw them at the end of the block
Imperial Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
In their white dunce caps
And robes with red crosses
Embroidered on
Like gilded leaves on an automatic rifle
Or an image of the suffering Christ
Airbrushed on the side of a missile
In broad daylight;
Donald Lovelady said
He thought they only came out at night—
Like an apparition,
Blood-real in the silver sun—
Between what’s ahead, what’s behind
Just another step in time
They were handing out tracts
To the Caucasian mothers and daughters
And fathers and sons of Colfax–
Laughing and joking, kneeling down,
Placing a gentle hand on a child’s blonde head
Like santa claus, or the pope
Like this was normal, like this was okay
Another doo-dah day down in dixieland
He didn’t say a word,
Minifield didn’t turn his head–
Just kept marching
Looking straight ahead
Looking straight ahead
Like there was somewhere better
He was going
But this was the only goddamned way to get there
Today, with his baton in the air
Looking straight ahead
Straight ahead…
Written by Kevin Gordon (Little Rain Music/BMI)
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