Won One

                 It was written in the late ‘50s by Buddy Holly’s replacement and recorded as the B side.  It was picked up in the mid ‘60’s by a band from Texas which had, up until that point, only minor hits.  The band recorded it as the A side, and it soon became a top ten hit.  In the late ‘70s, a British band picked up the song and recorded a cover of it.  It would be the band’s first single released in the United States.  In 2004 the song was named one of the 500 songs that shaped rock.  And of course, I misunderheard it.

                What is this oft-recorded song which was covered not only by the above artists [the Crickets, Bobby Fuller Four, the Clash], but also by the likes of Hank Williams Jr., the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, Roy Orbison, and Colin Farrell (who totally should have played Grindelwald, not just Percival Graves, Grindelwald’s alter ego in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)?  The song is “I Fought the Law and Law Won.”

                The song itself is not a poetic marvel in that “I fought the law and the law won” makes up over half of the original song recorded in the 1960s by the Bobby Fuller Four.  Of 22 lines, 12 say “I fought the law and the law won.”  In the Clash’s version in the 1970s, a full 2/3 (20 out of 30 lines) of the song is the line (if you count those three times they sing “I fought the law and the. . .”)

                Taking out the title line, one is left with the following:    

Breakin’ rocks in the hot sun I needed money ‘cause I had none I left my baby and it feels so bad Guess my race is run She’s the best girl that I ever had Robbin’ people with a six-gun I lost my girl and I lost my fun I left my baby and it feels so bad Guess my race is run She’s the best girl that I ever had

 

                There are literally only three lines of the story:  He’s in jail (breakin’ rocks) because he needed money and robbed people at gunpoint.  The remaining seven lines (three of which are repeated) bemoans how he lost his girl and feels bad. 

                All this leaves one to wonder how this could be one of Rolling Stone’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.  Since I’m just a mere music lover and misunderstander and do not know the ins and outs of what makes a great rock song, I guess I’m not at liberty to question.  I mean, it has had widespread dispersion.  The Bobby Fuller Four version has that kind of sound that was prevalent in the ‘60s—I’d say the Beach Boy-ish surfing sound.  The part I find most fascinating is that in the Bobby Fuller Four version and the Clash version when they sing about “robbin’ people with a six-gun”, the drummer has six distinctive taps, obviously indicating the gun.  Maybe all this makes it great—again, I don’t know.

                What I do know is as a child I misunderstood this song with its oft-repeated line because of homophones.  A homophone, as you may remember is words that have the same sound but have different spellings and meanings.  I thought for the longest time that they fought the law and the law one.  I wasn’t sure if the law and the sheriff had conspired against them or what.  In my mind, the law and the law one were two separate entities.

                It wasn’t until I was older (maybe 11 or 12) that a t-shirt helped clear up my confusion.  Yes, that’s right, a t-shirt.  One day my great-uncle was wearing a t-shirt which showed a cartoon person up to the ears in grass.  There might have even been a lawn mower on it.  The caption read, “I fought the lawn and the lawn won.”  It was then that I realized the error of my ways.  If I recall correctly, I commented to my parents that I finally understood the song at last.  I’m sure that brought on a few weird looks from them.

                So I would like to take this opportunity to thank my great-uncle for helping me clear up my misunderhearing of the song, and I encourage you all to go cut your grass—just pick up the rocks first.