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Billy Joe Shaver — Honky Tonk Hero.
Twice in the same day I saw the concept of the “heroic” badly misunderstood. When that sort of thing happens, I figure it’s time for a RIR post. The first was in the context of the passing at the age of 81 of Texas songwriting legend and larger-than-life wild man Billy Joe Shaver. “Trigger” the keeper of the excellent blog SavingCountryMusic.com, opined that:
Billy Joe Shaver wasn’t just a musical legend and icon, or an “Outlaw” as we like to call the artists who work outside of the Nashville system. He was a hero, in both music, and in life. What is a hero? A hero is someone who illustrates a level of bravery well beyond what most would be willing to. It’s someone who stands up and charges forward when the rest of us would sit down or fall back.
A commentator called “Paddy” replied:
Your definition of a hero leaves a lot to be desired. Basically what you are saying is behave like an idiot and sometime in the future someone will call you a hero.
Trigger had it right; Paddy had it wrong.
*
A bit later, Rullman scouted up a new tome on the Hudson’s Bay Co. by Stephen Bown. Of course, that sent me plunging down a rabbit hole, and I ordered The Company and another one of his books on what Bown calls The Age of Heroic Commerce. A reviewer was bent that Bown used the term “unironically.” Ugh. Irony is often trotted out as a gold-standard for intellectual self-awareness by the hip and holy of our culture — but I tend to view it pretty much like one of my heroes (yep), Jim Harrison did:
“I like grit, I like love and death, I’m tired of irony…”

Pierre Radisson heads into the wilderness. Art by Frederick Remington.
“The world was bad, and all men were fools—but there were men who would not be crushed. And that was a thing worth telling.”



We Have Come To Trade, by Robert W. Griffing
If you must have your irony, here’s one: The Heroic Age of Commerce paved the way for an age of bland convenience. Bold, mighty, destructive fur trappers, miners and cattlemen made the world safe for Apple and Wal-Mart. So there ya go. And let’s not even go into the current state of country music…
Matthew says
Well, we live in a distinctly unheroic age by either sense.
“Achilles and Hector were not good guys doing good deeds, they were mighty men doing mighty deeds.”
Boom!
Now I’ve a hankering to revisit some myths.
Always a good call.
p.s. — the guitarist backing Shaver looks like he’s got my Strat! 🙂
Rip it up!
tom says
in the past few years billy joe shaver used to come to phoenix for a concert. if hollywood made a dive bar production, surely they modeled it on “the rhythm room”, in an old part of phoenix, a little east of the old va hospital. billy joe’s concert place of choice. i almost find it hard to believe such beautiful lyrics came from a blue collar cotton picker and lumber mill worker? and i do not mean to “toot my horn” but after 50+ years i believe we who got drafted and sent to vietnam are accidental heroes. unless you upped for another year in the army, you did not have a choice for your “mos” (military occupational specialty). more likely thqn not you would end up in the combat arms, infantry or artillery. by your definition we were “accidental” heroes we had to do “well beyond what most would be willing to do”.….…
Fair enough, I think. Hats off to you.
Quixotic Mainer says
You’ve really nailed the differentiation between good and heroic. The word epic was overused and quasi ruined when I was young, but I would posit that it’s traditional definition is closely related to that of heroic. The Vikings and the Comanche were both certainly heroic and mighty, but you almost definitely would not want property they could get to if you weren’t part of the tribe.
The 3rd Star Wars prequel says in the opening crawl; “There are heroes on both sides” of the Clone Wars. The might of these figures is what makes them so, their morality is often a question of culture and perspective.
Thank you, QM.
This lays it down nicely…
And you’re right about “epic.” When it’s applied to everything from mountain climbing to ice cream sundaes, it losses its meaning.