Singin' is a Man's Way of Cryin': Songs inspired by the book: Sing Me Back Home by Merle Haggard
Posted by drblt at 4/22/2009 11:31 AM 
Categories: book, book review, new songs
Tags: nu bako Sing me back home Merle Haggard bakersfield sound underground sing me back home book Pegggy Russell Bakersfield sound
Categories: book, book review, new songs
Tags: nu bako Sing me back home Merle Haggard bakersfield sound underground sing me back home book Pegggy Russell Bakersfield sound
It's the following final paragraphs in the prologue that remind me of just why I wrote and recorded the song, Singin' is a Man's Way of Crying in between the first and second readings of this book. As you hear a bit of the song (the whole song if you have it), and read the quote below, from the book, reflect on the question:
What social pressures and unwritten rules within traditional families of Western civilization impact the way men process their emotions?
Remember, in these AmeriKern, nu bako blogs, I supply the topics and the tunes. All you need to do is to supply the talk and you do that in the comments section below. Are you read? Read! Listen! Reflect! Share your reflections!
I didn't make any plans and I didn't even dream. I do remember wishing to God I could talk to Daddy just one more time. I needed his advice, his understanding, and, most of all, his love. He would have made things better. He could do that with just a smile or a wink. My God, why did he have to die just when I needed him most? Didn't he know that a nine-year-old boy needs his Daddy so damned bad?
The man didn't cry then, but the boy did. It was the last time the boy ever cried. When the tears were finally gone, I was filled with an awful pain and an emptiness that comes only from continual crying inside--and it never goes away.
Go ahead, just ask me about hell. I've been there. Only spent seven days---but it was quite enough.
Singin' is a Man's Way of Cryin' sample
Dr BLT
words and music by Dr BLT © 2009
Download | Duration: 00:00:37
After I read his reflection a feel sad inside of me, because I also loss my dad when I was young. Years ago, A man for the Western Civilization represented a head of the family. Men could not cry other wise people look at him as a coward or a little man. Men have to represent their emotion in other ways because in society cry for men was not acceptable. This way to think now change, Men are humans and they have their own rights to express their feeling showing emotion. In another hand, when he was a boy who loosed his father and as a result he started to go for the wrong way. He cannot overcome to the pain of not having his dad next to him especially when he was a child.
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I think that men are socialized to be tough, and that they don't feel that as a man, they are allowed to cry. I notice that Haggard refers to the "boy" in him crying, and I know that he was talking about his childhood trauma, but I think there was a deeper meaning. He was still crying as a man, and he wanted to believe that it was as a child.
I also think this is a good example of an addict hitting bottom. He felt that his life could not get any lower than it was, and he was determined to change things. It was a huge turning point for him. I think that sometimes this is harder for a man, because men are supposed to be the strong ones, and it is hard for many men to admit weakness (such as addiction or failure)and to seek help for their problems.
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The social pressures from our society continue to instill in males to be strong and men should not show there emotions.Crying is looked a pond has a sign of weakness in men or boys.In Latin American Culture this is very common.After reading and listing to the song . I remembered how by father would try to make my younger brother box so he could be tough and strong and learn how to defend himself. But my brother did like to box and would cry and my father would get so upset at him and tell him
he was a baby. My brother was 5 years old.Obviously this impacted by brother
tremendously. He learned to suppress his emotions because if he showed them this would make him weak and not a really man like our father. Thinking about this i realized that I never saw my father cry once in his life.
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I feel from an early age in life, boys are taught to not cry be tough and keep their head held high. Sometimes I feel society makes fun of men if their to emotional and even from personal experience I've heard my own friends say "he's a wussy if he cries!" Also I feel somewhere its inbreaded in men to not ask for help. Even if their lost they still try their hardest to do it on their own. What I've observed from my guy friends is instead of crying when their pissed, they fight (whoever) and thats obviously a horrible way to get over your emotions inside.
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Men definitely have different social norms in relation to showing emotions. I have a friend who is very ill and it's obvious that her husband is not at all comfortable talking about his feelings surrounding this illness. If he was to go for therapy I believe it would be important for him to receive therapy from a gender-sensitive perspective.
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