Bob Derland writes a song

Bob Derland. Who is Bob Derland?

Why is Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore releasing a new record called Bob Derland? Is this a tribute to songs of Bob Derland?

Bob Derland may not exist. Because Bob Derland is actually just my misreading of the title BORDERLAND.

"There are two types of folk music: quiet folk music and loud folk music. I play both." - Dave AlvIn.

“Well I headed back to the Borderland when the home guard went insane / No use trying to work with people who can’t tell fire from rain.”

Jimmie Dale Gilmore co-wrote the song with David Hammond. Jimmie spells it out for us in the early morning, still wondering what happened to Bob Derland, “The Big Bend of the Rio Grande River, which in Mexico is called Rio Bravo Del Norte, is one of the most magnificent geographical features of our world. It is a vast, rugged, and beautiful landscape that holds a mysterious attraction for some people. It is the borderland between two cultures, two countries, and, in a way, at least two contrasting worldviews. My wife and I have spent as much time there as possible for many years, and this song is an attempt to evoke a feeling of the place. A strange sense of something deeply familiar and yet, at the same time, completely alien. Maybe all true love songs are made of something like this.”

Today I woke with one thing on my mind. My wife. We went to the symphony last night; the VSO were performing Carmina Burana. Wikipedia instructs,” Carmina Burana is a cantata composed in 1935 and 1936 by Carl Orff, based on 24 poems from the medieval collection Carmina Burana. Its full Latin title is Carmina Burana: Cantiones profanae cantoribus et choris cantandae comitantibus instrumentis atque imaginibus magicis ("Songs of Beuern: Secular songs for singers and choruses to be sung together with instruments and magical images").

Magical images. Like me falling asleep just shy of fifteen minutes in. Briefly. Just resting eyes, as my Mother and Father both said at many occasions. The magnificence of hearing the symphony, all those musicians, a chorus of about 80-100 singers. I lost count. Three featured singers of the operatic variety. And one ring to bind them all, the ringleader, the conductor. Yes, for those in the back, the Conductor Wore Black.

In a nutshell, the plot of the cantata was the fickled finger of fate and fortune, wealth and health, the joys and hi-jinx of life, another tale of spring, and the love and lusts the put back the spring in our step, the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling, and lust. And what of the the other three Deadly Sins? Do they get a night off or Orff?

I particularly loved the entrance of the Tenor, who sings in a tavern of the time when “Once I swam in lakes.” Well, who didn’t swim in lakes at one time or another. And who doesn’t have stories to tell in a tavern.

“Once upon a time there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
Think of all the great things we would do?

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way”

Gene Raskin wrote these words that went with song sung so poignantly by Mary Hopkin.

But what about Bob Derland? What song is Bob Derland most famous for writing or singing? LinkedIn advises the following:

Robert Derland

none at none

none

It seems Mr. Derland forgot to write anything. Not a song about lakes or taverns or the towns you find on the borderland. Well, this will not do. If Robert Derland can’t even do the decent thing and write a song, why would Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Dave Alvin write and sing about him?

So I will help. Here is my song NONE AT NONE by Robert “ Bob” Derland this very morning, just for you, my readers:

Remember the tavern on the green

The time you made the hole in one

Which differs from the time

Your balls were shining in the sun

Or freezing in a lake.

Oh how the earth would shake

The waters they would quake

Inside your beatle boots

We drank a glass of onion

And we were never there

We were none at none

Done before our time

We sang the Ancient Rhime

We sucked the mordant lime

left out for hours in the sun

We sucked the very life out

We settled debts and settled bets

We drank the bar dry

Until nothing breathed a hint

Barely standing. Our Man Skint.

Still our hearts were pounding.

Like the sounds of old songs sung.

‘Til we were none at none.