So the other day, I’m talking to my 24 year old colleague and a graduating senior, I’m 46, and the conversation is about a relatively unimportant dilemma that my colleague is experiencing. Probably because I had recently legally downloaded the Kenny Rogers version of the Rodgers and Hart song “The Gambler,” I half jokingly quoted from the chorus in some inane attempt at both light-hearted humor and clichéd insight. Neither my colleague nor the graduating senior had ever heard of the song and only vaguely knew Kenny Rogers as some country singer. My colleague’s comment was that the song and Kenny Rogers were no longer, and maybe never had been, relevant. The graduating senior pointed out that he easily could name card game and gambling analogies in hundreds of more relevant and contemporary songs. Of course I could not resist tossing in the joke that’s going around these parts, “How do you wake a sleeping Lady Gaga? Poke her face.” They both groaned.
Yes, bad joke, but I’m a ruminator and so I have been thinking of that little interaction. What’s so irrelevant about Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”? I put the two, the song and the singer, together, because until today, I never thought about who might have written the song. Kenny Rogers’ version is the only version I’ve ever heard, and I associate his voice with the narrative of the song. Even though Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart wrote the song, it will always be a Kenny Rogers song to me. Sure, Kenny Rogers is not now, and possibly never was the definition of hip, but does this mean his song is not relevant? Just because a song is based on clichés and banal metaphor, can’t it still ring true and perhaps even be a bit more philosophical than many would like to admit.
Take stanza one for example: On a warm summer's evenin' on a train bound for nowhere,
I met up with the gambler; we were both too tired to sleep.
So we took turns a starin' out the window at the darkness
'Til boredom overtook us, and he began to speak.
We have a vivid sense of place and an existential journey into nothingness. We have two lonely people, the nameless narrator and a man who simply is a gambler, a guy who plays the odds, who takes chances, who lives on the edge, an existential hero who actively makes choices and accepts the consequences. Notice that they do not speak until they are so bored they can think of nothing else to do. Wow, is this a statement on our mundane chit-chat? This seems pretty interesting to me.
So Stanza two offers us some conversation:
He said, "Son, I've made my life out of readin' people's faces,
And knowin' what their cards were by the way they held their eyes.
So if you don't mind my sayin', I can see you're out of aces.
For a taste of your whiskey I'll give you some advice."
The gambler is wise. He can see who people are by looking closely at their faces, noticing details; he is not fooled by facades and trendy accessories. He know the truth; he understands ennui and existential angst. He sees our story-teller is looking out that window directly into what Camus calls the Absurd. He knows that poor Kenny has no aces left; he has nothing to distract him from staring directly into the naked reality. The gambler will not give advise for free though. He demands payment. He knows that we treasure what we work for, what we sacrifice for. So advice will require a choice on the narrator’s part. He must solicit it, it will not simply be thrust upon him. Like the gambler, the narrator must choose.
More to come…
