Ray McManus’s Book Notes poetry collection The Last Saturday In America is filled with evocations of Southern masculinity in the modern world.
I didn’t grow up with books of poetry (or literature for that matter) in my house. I worked, just like my dad did and his dad did, so on and so on. I had music though. Songwriters were (and still are) my favorite poets.
Music has always been an important part of my writing process, and much of this playlist is comprised of songs I was listening to when I wrote most of the poems for this book. I found others after the fact. I curated them here because I think they add another layer to the poems in The Last Saturday in America. If nothing else, it was fun to imagine a film being played out with these songs as the soundtrack.
I hope you enjoy!
“The Crusher” by Novas
Wrasslin’
I found the song first by The Cramps, not knowing it was a remake. I love The Cramps, but the original is better. If the poem evokes images of wrestlers, professional and amateur, drunk or sober, then this song has to play in the background. A montage of stupidity harkening a time once bookended by Saturday morning cartoons and lunchtime wrestling. We went from Smurfs to a barrage of steroid and cocaine rage-filled speeches followed by off-the-top-rope atomic elbows, stingers, and figure fours. And there we are, boys acting every bit of it in sand pits and rock piles and dirt roads. Sweaty, shirtless boys, wrestling and sliding off each other’s skin, finding grit along the way. And it was all for some grand quest to be an alpha champion of absolutely nothing. An ironic act, so wonderfully gay.
“The Rule of One Hand” by A Spot on the Hill
Angels Already Know, Where Bullies Come From, What it Takes to be Sober, Camping with Elijah
I’ve been a fan of Dan Cook ever since I first discovered his work as a founding member of Lay Quiet Awhile here in Columbia back in the 90’s. The music scene back then helped me see an alternative to a place that was oppressive and unapologetic. Dan has since moved on from those days of “melodic thrash folk metal” and now composes music. His latest project A Spot on the Hill was an important find for me while working on this book. I prefer instrumental compositions when I’m writing. It helps me focus and with ADHD I need all the focus I can get. But it was especially a saving grace to have A Spot on the Hill between 2018-now. I turned to my poetry to make sense of the world and having Dan’s music helped me get to a place that made sense for that. “The Rule of One Hand” felt representative for the first four poems of the book’s first section. So much of what we were as boys was simply a reproduction layered upon reproductions that were dictated by one voice and ruled by one hand.
“Explain It To Me” by Liz Phair
How Boys are Measured, Hurricane Season Inland, We Know the Field
For a lot of us, growing up white in the rural South is punctuated by the rites of passage we were expected to participate in. A lot of those expectations came straight from coaches and dads without explanation: rise above it, dig down, walk it off, failure is not an option. And that was just climbing a rope or jumping off a bridge. What they didn’t seem to understand, was that we were destined to fail. And we were okay with it. At least it was something we could measure up to. Liz Phair’s commentary takes a bite at those adult males. “Tell him to jump higher. Tell him to run farther. Make him measure up. Decades longer than you.” It captures the theme behind the theme in these poems. No one still has explained it me.
“Wasted and Rollin’” by Amanda Shires
When the Men are Talking and On the Road Damascus
I love the way this song works. It’s nostalgic for my generation. We got high, and it was wonderful. A blissful haze of adventurous enlightenment. Just away of holding each other while the rest of the world zig-zagged and leaned. I can look back and enjoy it for the adolescence. I can mourn for the loss of brain cells. But I saw and heard some crazy shit, and that is often wonderful fodder for some good poetry.
“Beg Steal or Borrow” by Ray LaMontagne with the Pariah Dogs
When You Can’t Tell the Vines from the Branches and Fuck It
If the previous song captures our youth, then this song is the anthem of the young adult southern male who grew up in a small town. Guys like me who rebelled at the status quo, wasn’t afraid to be independent while doing one’s best to not grow up. But we grow up anyway. Learn of new expectations, most of it on the fly: keep your head down, get it done, win anyway. And so, we got married, had kids, sometimes sons, forging something out of nothing, going nowhere. I guess it was easy to think maybe it would have been better off stepping in line like our dads did, but those ladders no longer existed. Sooner or later, most of us just said fuck it.
“Call It What You Will” by Joe Pug
The Dale Earnhardt School of Human Experience, Calculus for a Disappearing South, How to Forget a Nation
Sometimes I’m just looking for answers. Sometimes in the search there’s a voice to guide me. I love Joe Pug’s voice. It’s earthy and sounds like he’s holding a lozenge in his mouth, plus he’s a hell of a songwriter and his voice is real for the lyrics in this song. I don’t think my kids like him all that much. Raising them on good music has been the greatest test. How much of the musical repertoire do I open up for them? What do I tell them and show them about the world? What do I tell them and show them about the world? It’s not a question of right or wrong. It’s question of timing. If I show them everything, what is gained, and if I don’t, what is lost? And what is time?
Living here, in the middle of a neighborhood in the middle of a Southern state in the middle of the South, I see the same shit I’ve always seen: the same performance, the same indoctrination, the same lie on rinse and repeat. Only this time, it isn’t at a church camp or on a lunch break from cleaning out a chicken house. It’s blasted on our television sets and flying out of the backs of trucks. It’s hard to fight about it anymore I’m getting too old, and I’m too tired. And honestly, sometimes, most times, I don’t even know what I’m doing any more than I did when I was younger. But I owe it to my kids to keep fighting, to expose them to good music, and above all else keep learning. Call it what you will.
“Museum of Idiots” by They Might Be Giants
Origin of Species, The Give and Take, In the Museum of Men and Their Machines, How to Stay Bent
The older I get, the more I appreciate a good horn section. Especially one that punches like it does in this song. Living in my neighborhood from 2016 all the way through the pandemic was like living in a museum of idiots. I, too, want to be here when they burn it down.
Funny thing about museums; everything in them is dead. The museum is trying to keep it alive and relevant, and from a historical standpoint, I get it. But I’m not sure America gets it. Praise the dead, sure. But raise the dead? Sound great. More zombies.
“Cruel Country” by Wilco
Black and White Cowboys, Natural Selection, Man’s Greatest Hits
I was wrapping up the book when I found this song. It speaks to the patriot cult of this country and very much speaks to where I live and grew up. All you have to do is sing in the choir and you can have your childish love for your country, no matter how stupid and cruel it is. Stupid and cruel: What are two words that describe America? But do you know what is cooler than singing in a choir? Singing in a choir with guns!
“The Grouch” by Green Day
Boomer
Normally, I’m not one for this bubblegum punk sound. Some call this pop-punk. Whatever it is, this song by Green Day (also not one of my favorite bands) picks up from the theme from the previous song. I mean, I’d smash the TV to this. But truth is, I’ve been fighting boomers my whole damn life, mainly because they have been here my whole damn life. It’s not that I have a negative attitude towards the elderly. But boomers with their the-world-owes-me-so-fuck-you mindset is so hypocritical to everything they taught us when we were younger. It’s so selfish and look where it has gotten us. Still, what a lovely song for picking up the pace. I can’t think of a better one to go with this poem or especially for punching boomers. White rural rage, anyone?
“Bonaparte’s Retreat” by Doc & Merle Watson
Whatever the Opposite of Extinction Is, Empty Church, Any Morning but Saturday
Are y’all doing okay? Need to take a break? Let’s take a break. Let’s retreat from the front line a bit and see how the kids are doing. From the looks of it, they still seem feral, so nothing unusual here. I’d like to take this moment to let you know that retreat is not surrender. Retreat is regroup, re-evaluate, reconsider. These poems mark a shift in the book for the speaker. This song marks a shift in the soundtrack. Nothing more to see here.
“If Not For You” by Bob Dylan
Manifest Destiny, How the West is Won, One Way to Take a Dog
This song is about as close to singing as Bob Dylan can do. In that vein, these poems are about as close as I can get to writing love poems. This song is extremely simple, especially compared to some of Dylan’s more complicated lyrical arrangements. I want simple here though, and I love the pace. A simple direction. A simple touch. A simple joke. A simple pace. Something simple and calm. Thanks, Bob! But I can’t make love to your music. Should anyone?
“Still” by Great Lake Swimmers
Survey, Night Swimming, Smoke Signals
I found Great Lake Swimmers several years back, I think, when I was working on my promotion file for work. I just dig their sound. It’s Americana at its finest: sad and melodic, with pops of optimism and assurance. And there’s poetry in the lyrics.
This song feels right for these poems. Not moving one way or another, finding some stillness in all the chaos. Usually for me that is when everyone has gone to bed. That quiet space in the night when the rest of the world has slowed down and it’s just me. The hum I hear is just my engines slowing down. And suddenly I’m still. I’m still looking for direction, some kind of sign. But I’m still. I’m still.
“Magna Carta” by Mark Orton
There is a Risk of Swelling, Bruising, and Tenderness, Pioneer Diorama, Post Op
When Lindsay had Lennon (our youngest child), it was a difficult delivery. She almost didn’t make it. We were told that it would be too dangerous for her to carry full-term in future pregnancies. And the doctor started talking about all the invasive procedures my wife could have, what they could implant, what they could remove. And I’m just sitting there. So, I made the decision that I would get a vasectomy. It wasn’t even something I debated. There was no way I was going to chance losing my wife, and there was no way I was going to inflict the insanity of me being the sole parent for my kids. I read some pamphlets and some stuff on the internet. The appointment was easy. The liquid valium was great. Seeing smoke come from my loins was rad. And it was nothing a bag of frozen peas couldn’t fix. Beth Ann Fennelly has a cool micro-memoir about frozen peas. If you haven’t checked out Heating and Cooling, you should. It was a key read for me working on the latter stages of the book. Oh, and this song, well I like Mark Orton’s work. I like writing to it. This one makes me feel like whatever journey I’m on and with whom, it’s the right one.
“St. Jupiter” by Rushton Kelly
Homo Habitus, Nobody’s Bargain, The Last Saturday in America
Rushton Kelly is from Georgetown here in SC and one hell of a songwriter. This song makes me homesick. I get homesick often. But ever since the pandemic, I really don’t want to travel all that far from home. I mean, I do, and part of me has to, but I don’t want to. I want to go back to a Spring morning planting flowers with my wife. I want to go back to that summer and fall, us all together watching TV, even it meant being scared to death. It was a long fucking summer.
I changed. We all did.
And we changed the channels. It was a long year.
I felt fat and old and dumber watching time disappear. But somewhere in all of it, I finally realized how to finish this book (a book that haunted me for damn near 7 years). Love. It’s all you need, and it is the answer. That’s the fire we need raging. If we can keep that going, we’ll be doing alright.
“The World is on Fire” by American Aquarium
Diehards
American Aquarium is based out of North Carolina, and BJ Barham is one the finest songwriters of our time. This song was the song that pulled me through those terrible four years. When I think about how this song relates to the poem, like the opener, it’s cinematic. This song playing in the background while I drive the car and listen to my wife tell our children about the world around them. It’s clear to the speaker in the end that his children need to see a future without him in it. It’s their future. And as scary as that may seem, that’s how we break the cycle of the paternal lie of the generation before us. Men could do good to understand that now and save us all from impending disaster. But they probably won’t. Because men are stupid.
Ray McManus is the author of four books of poetry: Punch. (winner of the 2015 Independent Publishers Book Award for Best Book of Poetry in North America), Red Dirt Jesus (selected by Alicia Ostriker for the Marick Press Poetry Prize 2011), and Driving through the country before you are born (winner of the South Carolina Book Prize in 2006), and a chapbook called Left Behind. He is the co-editor for the anthology Found Anew with notable contributors with South Carolina ties. His poems have been published in numerous journals such as Crazyhorse, Prairie Schooner, and POETRY magazine. He lives in South Carolina where he teaches for USC Sumter and serves as the Writer in Residence for the Columbia Museum of Art.