The last waltz

Greg Brown, left, with Byron Stuart at the legendary Byron’s Bar in Pomeroy, Iowa, after a show.

Iowa’s leading muse, Greg Brown, put on his last big show at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City last weekend. He insists he is retired, done with the road, off the stage unless some local benefit draws in him. He’s 73. He would just as soon stay home and write songs, he told the Cedar Rapids Gazette. And he said this:

“For the record, I won’t be doing any more formal concerts, but if there is a charity event around town, I’ll be open to playing it. I still might get up there and perform, but I won’t be playing ‘The Iowa Waltz’ anymore.

“But the problem is, the song isn’t true anymore,” Brown said. “I can’t sing ‘We take care of our old/We take care of our young.’ It's not accurate. I would move out of Iowa if I wasn’t so old.”

He was no interloper, the author of “Early.” 

Plow broke the prairie, the prairie gave plenty

The little towns blossomed and soon there were many

Scattered like fireflies across the dark night

And one was called Early, and they sure named it right

Here’s “Walking Beans:”

Last fall it was dry, oh my, oh my,

You could ask the smartweed; maybe the smartweed knows why.

And then Mr. Corn Borer, he brought his whole family,

And they laid the corn low when it got windy.

Well now there's corn in the bean fields, persnickety once it clings,

I got these blisters on my fingers; I got these cockleburs in my dreams.

That’s as Iowa as it gets, to someone of a certain age. He was the son of a rural preacher who graduated to Nashville and Austin but always came home.

“Iowa has turned into a toxic mess due to the Republican administration,” Brown told The Gazette. “The water is some of the worst in the country. Our schools used to be respectable, including the college (University of Iowa) but those schools now are in the middle of the pack or are lower. People still say that Iowa feeds the country. Well, I hope the nation loves high fructose corn syrup and ethanol because that’s what we’re making here.”

Yet, our state bard is hanging around for family and friends. “My idea of a good time is not going anywhere,” he said.

You could just ignore him. But when Greg Brown, of all people, fancies the idea of just getting the hell out of here we should listen. It’s what a lot of people are saying: it feels like we’re going backwards, and we look like stupid and cruel hicks — which is not the narrative we have written for ourselves.

He’s right about taking care of the young and the old. Closed nursing homes. Middling schools with muzzled teachers. And he’s right about the water, Lord knows. 

Here’s how it used to go in three-quarter time:

Iowa, Iowa,

Winter, spring, summer and fall.

Come and see, come dance with me,

To the beautiful Iowa Waltz.

We take care of our old, take care of our young,

Make hay while the sun shines.

Growing our crops, singing our songs,

And planting until harvest time.

Our favorite son wrote of a different time and sense of community in a voice that projected to the nation what we aspire to be, in our peculiar way. (“Whole lotta money in Fairfield, I’m gonna get me some … Ottumwa’s tighter than a drum.”) When Greg Brown wants to bail you have to ask yourself if this is the right direction for Early, where oo-wee ain’t the mornin’ light pretty, when the dew is still heavy so bright and early. So we stay. We remind ourselves that we can set things right if we stick with it. Stubborn-like. There’s enough of us left who remember, surely, and pass it on like an old tune. Hum the Iowa Waltz in your head even if he can’t sing it anymore. It may be corny and schmaltzy in the current context, but living there if only in your head is better than what we pass off for a civic life these days. If you hum it long enough, things might change around here.

Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this editorial appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.

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