I know. I know. It’s nearly Christmas. Ho, Ho!
Still, if you looked back on yesterday’s playlist you’d see that Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her ” is really high on my playlist. This is really Leslie’s album and despite the fact that I don’t much like country western except early “rock” singers like Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Charlie Rich, I can’t quit listening to this particular song, apparently 19 times in the last two weeks since I first imported it.
I don’t know why this song has been haunting my playlist. Since I keep playing it, I assume it embodies some hidden truth that I must resolve before it engulfs me, once again.
I’d like to convince myself that it’s just the driving beat that I like, but I fear it’s the lyrics,
HE THINKS HE’LL KEEP HER
She makes his coffee, she makes his bed
She does the laundry, she keeps him fed
When she was twenty-one she wore her mother’s lace
She said “forever” with a smile upon her face
She does the car-pool, she PTAs
Doctors and dentists, she drives all day
When she was twenty-nine she delivered number three
And every Christmas card showed a perfect family
Everything runs right on time, years of practice and design
Spit and polish till it shines. He thinks he’ll keep her
Everything is so benign, safest place you’ll ever find
God forbid you change your mind. He thinks he’ll keep her
She packs his suitcase, she sits and waits
With no expression upon her face
When she was thirty-six she met him at their door
She said I’m sorry, I don’t love you anymore
Everything runs right on time, years of practice and design
Spit and polish till it shines. He thinks he’ll keep her
Everything is so benign, safest place you’ll ever find
God forbid you change your mind. He thinks he’ll keep her
For fifteen years she had a job and not one raise in pay
Now she’s in the typing pool at minimum wage
Everything runs right on time, years of practice and design
Spit and polish till it shines. He thinks he’ll keep her
Everything is so benign, safest place you’ll ever find
At least until you change your mind. He thinks he’ll keep her
not the music that compells me to keep listening to the song. The line “Everything runs right on time,” particularly haunts me. Does it merely mean our heroine runs the perfect home or does it imply this divorce was preordained?
Is the inevitability conveyed in the implied arrogance of “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her?” Or, is it some kind of malevolent force out there heading for us, no matter what we do? Some day it’ll just hit, like one of those sharks in The Old Man and the Sea? Is it some sort of cancerous growth secretly eating away at all relationships, emerging just when you feel “everything is so benign?”
I know I’m bothered by the line “For fifteen years she had a job and not one raise in pay,” implying we do everything in life for pay, that doing something simply out of love is old-fashioned or meaningless.
Hell, maybe I’m just haunted by the lines “With no expression upon her face … She said I’m sorry, I don’t love you anymore.”