LONESOME VALLEY? WALK IT BY MYSELF? WHAAAT?

 

The Carter Family has a map of the lonesome valley.

Everybody knows the way on the lonesome valley.

Your mother’s gonna walk it.

Your daddy’s gonna walk it.

Those sinners got to walk it.

And they all walk it alone.

That’s what the Carter Family says.

Everybody’s got to walk this lonesome valley
We’ve got to walk it by ourselves
There’s nobody here can walk it for us
We’ve got to walk it by ourselves

Woody Guthrie said it too.

There’s a road that leads to glory
Through a valley far away,
Nobody else can walk it for you,
They can only point the way.

Walk it all alone?

What if you get lost? It happens to the best, getting lost.

Then what?

If you’re a loner, step right out. No one will ever know if you got lost.

“Hey, where did Jim go?”

“Dunno, he was here last time I looked.”

Loners have their own agenda, their own map. And they don’t share.

Why? Because they prefer solitude with no one to share anything with.

That’s not you, though. Me either.

We like to share things good and bad. You know, share the burden.

Besides, who will listen to the stories you get from walking that lonesome valley, from going down the road like the Grateful Dead?

Goin’ down the road feelin’ bad.
Goin’ down the road feelin’ bad.
Goin’ down the road feelin’ bad.
I don’t want to be treated this away.

Don’t walk that lonesome valley, or go down that road feeling bad, alone.

No one is listening if you feel bad, not if you’re all alone. That’s called self-pity.

The only reason you’d go it alone is because no one wants to join you. Why?

I think you know.

Check the mirror, boys and girls, and ask who you’d like to go with?

If you don’t come up with anyone, that’s your answer. If you don’t like that answer, don’t start the trip.

Instead, change things up. Make a difference, enough of a difference that someone might see some fun in joining you.

Of course extra company might cramp your style. But only if you have style to start with.

Or you have a condition like Neil Diamond:

So that’s where Jim went?

Don’t walk that lonesome valley with a girl-stealer.

Pick your travel companions carefully, or you’ll regret it.

Ask these questions before you plan the trip:

1. Are you compatible? Do you like the same music, the same food?

2. Do they complain more than you?

3. Are they running from something, or toward something?

4. Do you trust them with your life?

The questions go on and on in a never ending list, but you’ve got to stop asking them if you ever want to get started.

Take a few things in good faith.

However, if you do go it alone you might find yourself in the desert southwest like this guy:

Well, I’m a-standin’ on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
Such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flat-bed Ford
Slowin’ down to take a look at me
Come on, baby, don’t say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me

If the saving part sounds good, and you’re a Ford man, this is the place for you.

The rest of you might want a little company along the way.

And this is the way.

Welcome aboard.