Ultimately, “The Legend of Wooley Swamp” is remarkably lazy. Isn’t a swamp always wet, even if nobody’s been murdered there for revenge? Granted, if you realized you were about to be murdered for revenge, you might make a wet spot, but I don’t think that’s what Daniels meant. Which is why 50 years later, you can still hear boys screaming and an old man laughing at “a spot in the yard in the back of that shack / Where the ground is always wet.” It’s a swamp, fer chrissakes. They stuff him into quicksand and steal his money, only to end up sucked into the quicksand themselves. It’s easy to guess where the story is going: the Cable boys (who are, among other things, “belligerent when they speak”) decide to rob and murder the old man. Clay was a greedy old man who kept his money in Mason jars, except “on certain nights if the moon was right / He’d dig it up out of the ground / He’d pour it all out on the floor of his shack / And he’d run his fingers through it.” Fetishes are creepy, but why we’re dragging the moon into one so pedestrian is a mystery. Something bad is going on out there, way back in Booger Woods: “they say the ghost of Lucius Clay gets up and he walks around.” He does not materialize, neither does he creep-he merely gets up and walks around, like he was a coronary bypass patient on the second day. And it’s why the Charlie Daniels Band’s 1980 country-rock hit “The Legend of Wooley Swamp” is one of the World’s Worst Songs. In song, it’s why “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot is still irresistible after all this time. In the hands of a masterful storyteller, the action and the details become a satisfying whole we can enjoy again and again. Or we can revel in the telling, the little details that ring true and bring the story to vivid life. We can enjoy it for the action, incident piling upon incident, and seeing how the whole thing works out. The Charlie Daniels Band, from the cover of "Full Moon" (1980) (Epic Nashville) 229 registered members ( sweet-t, jaydub12, phinfan, Hornhntr, mcninja, abolt300, Bake, jwalker77, dsmc, Sus scrofa Reduction Specialist, scrape, M48scout, bamaeyedoc, metalmuncher, dawgdr, 25-20, mjs14, Frankie, Chaser357, Dean, timberwolfe, redgineer, Skinner, foghorn, RSF, Treelimb, Turkey_neck, Cabmlor4, Beadlescomb, jtillery, Calvin, AJones, Cade, donia, CNC, Snuffy, COOTER, Bustinbeards, Bandit635, foldemup, fur_n_feathers, Andalusia, buzzbait, BamaBoHunter, Standbanger, Sqzpla, PapaD, Jay512, Be_Cam, NotsoBright, Semo, AMB, knock him down, Bamajoz, Turberville, mdavis, UARand圓, GoldenEagle, coldtrail, jhardy, jono23, Tree Hanger, mikewhandley, Big Buck Video, Hammertime7v2, Claims Rep., Camden86, Mookyle, AU7MM08, red_october, Whitetaillane, Crawfish, UA Hunter, tpageal, eclipse829, DrewK11, !shiloh!, Downwind, Bruno, woodduck, 270 guru, jaredhunts, Whiskey9, Seminole93, Gobble4me757, imslower, doublefistful, Big Bore, SnipeHunter, Hunting-231, jake5050, ATDH79, sanderson, CAL, 7x57_Mauser, CivilDawg67, Bama two, bward85, twaldrop4, sluggun, ronfromramer, KPcalls, Flyliner, SuperSpike, StateLine, NATTABOY, riflenut, Bowfish, Jus_me, CW, Offshore, Red Fox, CouchNapper, Daveleeal, oldandwise, G1Eagle, MAG, MCbama, bamacotton, hallb, jawbone, EmeraldTides, MattIce, Cjunkin, marshmud991, Mbrock, Wadenthebushes, Buckshot77, 1hunter, CaptKirk, mauvilla, MoeBuck, MadMallard, 300gr, Spec, Zbrann, turkeychaser, slanddeerhunter, JohnG, Mansfield, 2walnuts, Floorman1, GomerPyle, JustinJ, Larryj, bhammedic84, Whild_Bill, BCLC, BAR II.
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