Tom T Hall was just in a different category, as his nickname -- the Storyteller -- implies. You were not knocked out by the first notes of an agony-wracked tenor, as with Hank or George; nor did he just give you a particularly moving scene or thumbnail bio like Merle. His songs were sung plain, honestly told, took their time building, and then knocked you out by the end.
It’s my belief they stand as literature. Nobody packed more wallop into three or four verses of three chords and the truth than he did, ever, and it’s unlikely anyone ever will again.
I came late to a deep appreciation of Tom T, and I feel like I still need to dig deeper still. I am not sad that I have not yet ransacked the entirety of his catalogue -- I anticipate doing so, the same way I once anticipated Star Wars sequels or the next season of The Sopranos or The Wire.
And in that late appreciation, I realized that no entertainer or public figure out there has ever reminded me more of my dad than Tom T. Hall. They look alike. They talked alike. They could have the same deceptively stern gaze -- dad and I alike share something like the male equivalent of the resting bitch face -- but also are never far from a room-lighting grin, one like that of Larry Hagman, who Tom T also resembled. Philosophically, and as role models I strive to emulate, I’d also throw in Jimmy Carter my father-in-law John Graml, who also reminds me of Tom T. Hall, whom he also resembles, and brings me full circle.
It’s also in their saltiness. From all of these men I’ve learned that to be masculine, one need not shy from being tender, and to be tender, one must not be a wuss. I’ve learned that to be Southern or Texan most decidedly means not to revel in or seek out or be proud of pig-ignorance, as far too many of my people continue to do. Tom T shared our family’s in-born revulsion for hypocrisy and sanctimony and expressed it better than anyone ever did in “Harper Valley PTA,” a song that revealed him to be a male feminist before the term feminism was even widely accepted.
In a song like “Pay Not Attention to Alice,” he devastates with his portrayal of an alcoholic couple -- the narrator-husband would have you believe Alice is uniquely beyond hope, but Tom T shows and doesn’t tell that each as afflicted as the other. Afflicted -- he judges neither. The man feels a coward because he failed his country during time of war and so he drinks, and looks down, just a little bit, on his wife for drinking still more.
Or where do you rank this among the dark as a dungeon history of mining disaster songs? Such a strange approach — Hall just goes to a town that lost most of its men, and finds only noncommittal shrugs of “ ‘at’s just the way it goes,” and leaves the tale right where it needs leaving.
As Wade Williams pointed out, this was not made up out of Hall’s head, nor was it some catastrophe from decades before. It had happened with 12 months of the song’s release and I’d be surprised if the song was nothing more than artfully arranged reportage.
I don’t know exactly where to file this but Tom T Hall died on my dad’s 77th birthday, one in which I failed to call or send a present, sending only instead an email, promising a gift to come, a request for a shirt size, and a happy birthday wish. I got caught up in the day and the Astros game rolled around; we spoke for three hours last Friday, and in these pandemic times, nothing much has changed in the last week. Nothing new to report. But Tom T’s death coming on this day is yet another reminder -- cleave close to those you love.
I’ll close with a song about fathers and sons. I’ve never had quite as hard a time as Tom T had in this song explaining what I was trying to do with my life, but I sure as hell have felt compelled to explain what I was thinking, or not thinking, or not doing, on certain occasions.
Great to see a couple of Tom T.'s lesser known songs along with 'Homecoming", just his 2nd Top 5 hit. Checked him out in Whitburn to refresh my memory and learned that among his 54 charted Billboard magazine singles is a bit of prescience that reached #11 in 1972, "The Monkey That Became President".
Wow, what an honor to be mentioned in the same sentence with Tom T. Hall, one of the world's premier songwriters is an incredible 77th birthday gift! And to be mentioned along with John Graml compounds the honor. Much love, Dad