Cursed Song

[chordbanger]

I never want to hear The Prisoner's Song again. I lost two friends, and nearly lost a third friend, and I am wondering if the song is just plain bad luck. Each of my friends who sang the song were dead within one week, unexpectedly, and suddenly. The third one who sings the song at a jam session nearly died when a board in his saw mill hit him in the back of the head and knocked him unconscious within inches of the saw. If you are wondering if I am superstitious, you bet I am!

[OldSausage]

Well, you shouldn't be, it's just a coincidence. Think of all the people who sang the Prisoner's Song and are still alive, and of all the people who didn't sing it and died anyway. Don't give in to nonsense, tempting though it is.

[allenhopkins]

I'll bet all three of the victims had eaten some form of beef within a few days before these accidents. Shouldn't make you swear off cheeseburgers.

Reviewing that, I must apologize. It sounds like I'm making light of tragedy, and I surely don't mean to do that. I am truly sorry for the loss and injury of your friends, but I must agree with the post above. Unless we could establish some kind of verifiable connection between singing The Prisoner's Song and exposure to deadly harm, it will have to stand as coincidence.

So many events occur, even within the limited knowledge of each of us, and our minds seek for patterns and causation where neither exists. The more dreadful the event, the more we think there must be a "lesson" in it, a "moral" to take away, a strategy to avoid our own risk. In those circumstances, superstition becomes more and more tempting.

If the song now has bad associations for you, then of course don't sing it again. But The Prisoner's Song did not and could not cause the death and injury of your friends. We see so much, and can truly understand so little.

[journeybear]

Along the same lines: I did my laundry today. A few hours later, while I was at a friend's for Thanksgiving, someone I'd rented a room to but then had to kick out because of drug use, drunkenness, and general incompatability, came back around (apparently with some kind of a buzz on) looking for a place to crash. Fortunately my roommate had the good sense to send him on his way.

The last time I did my laundry another roommate skipped town, owing hundreds of dollars, and taking the cable box from her room (utterly useless, but $150 to replace).

The previous time I did laundry my van got towed by the city for being considered abandoned. (We have some interesting laws here.)

Coincidence? I dunno. Three times in a row is enough. I'm never doing laundry again. Just can't risk it.

[KristinEliza]

Not making light of your loss as well...

Every time I have traveled outside the country, my significant other has left me for another.

Every time I've been given flowers, my significant other leaves me in the following few weeks.

Bad luck? Naw, I just tend to date jerks!

[mrmando]

Has you significant other ever wired you flowers while you were out of the country?

[mandolirius]

Isn't the first line of that song "If I had the wings of an angel'? Perhaps another case of being careful what you wish for.

[Bertram Henze]

Decades ago, I had a longterm discussion with my mother who firmly believed that full or new moon the causes the wheather to change, and that the wheather was better on a waxing moon than on a waning moon (based on her own observations). I took the pains to do an analysis on ten year temperature and humidity data - and moon phase of course. Wheather change was defined as either a temperature change by more than 5 C or a humidity change by more than 20%. The result was that no correlation could be seen.

But it became also clear whence the belief came: my mother used to look at the moon and say "look, it's full moon and here comes the rain" when the moon just looked full the other day. To the unaided eye, the moon looks full for approx. 5 days. The analysis showed the probability for a wheather change in any 5-day period to be about 70%. Ignoring wheather changes outside a moon looking full does the job.

What about waxing/waning? When the wheather is good, you can see a waxing moon; that's all you observe. When the wheather is bad, you can't see the moon, whatever the phase. The waning moon is visible in the 2nd half of the night, when you are asleep, whatever the wheather.

You can prove anything if you allow an a-priori choice of observation.

In a circle of friends, people have many things in common (e.g. singing the same songs), but they are also those that we can observe. Therefore, all these common things appear to be connected, but they are so only by their being observed by us, not by any property of their own.

I know so many people who died - not because they sang The Prisoner's Song, but because they shook my hand. I am not making fun of tragedy, but we all involuntarily choose which tragedies we know about, therefore they are connected to us. It is like a shadow we cast - we should not wonder why it is following us around.

[hank]

Cast thy shadow without shame or fear and walk bravely into this day
You are here with your course set before you on a path that you alone can walk
Comfort your way with hope and compassion knowing the gift of your life is not random
Have heart that chaos born of superstition and deceit are powerless without your willingness and consent.

[Matt DeBlass]

I'm not going to comment one way or the other on superstition, but I'll sincerely say it's a shame that the song is associated with such tragedies for you. I could certainly see avoiding it for that reason alone.
The only song I avoid because of a personal association is the nice little harp tune I wrote for my then-girlfriend and later wife. When she left me I stopped playing it.

[westslope]

I don't believe in superstition.

It's bad luck to believe in superstition

[MikeEdgerton]

I don't believe in superstition.

It's bad luck to believe in superstition

Suddenly everything makes sense in this thread

[barney 59]

Everytime I do my laundry a sock goes missing. I think it's gnomes ---I always put at least one pair of socks in every load as a sacrifice so that the something more valuable doesn't go missing. I wouldn't play a song if I thought it was unlucky -- the same goes if it reminded me of a bad memory that I would rather forget. Unlucky in cheeseburgers is called "ecoli" and that might get me to quit.

[JEStanek]

Socks are merely obeying the laws of conservation of mass and energy. Socks in the dryer get transmogrified into belly button lint. This has been documented. This is where they go.

Jamie

[allenhopkins]

I have a nice comeback about socks vs. wire coat hangers, some sort of matter exchange with a parallel universe, but --

Remember where Chordbanger started this thread, with two deaths and a serious injury, which she connected to that ol' Vernon Dalhart standard, The Prisoner's Song. That OP set a serious, somber tone that our subsequent har-de-har-ing about missing socks doesn't give the proper respect.

Superstition is often a reaction to patterns in reality that we can't or won't accept... Must be something we can do to turn away fear and death -- some ritual we can perform, some action we can take or avoid. But of course there isn't.

As in James Thurber's cite of F. Hopkinson Smith: the claw of the sea-puss gets us all in the end.

[journeybear]

I beg to differ with you. I don't find Chordbanger's post all that somber or serious, though of course it was inspired by some serious events. I believe she was being tongue in cheek. We haven't heard from her since the OP, and I hope she's OK, but that's how I see it. I'll be glad to apologize to her if she expresses offense, but otherwise ...

Bear in mind the nature of the forum in which she addressed her concerns. This is a forum for discussion of topics relevant to musicians and music, not grief counseling. Also think of the general tendency in these discussions to veer into humor, banter, and wordplay - stylistic approaches which Chordbanger has shown herself to be quite adept and prone to use. In other words, posting such a message here practically begs for an opportunity for witty wankers (of which I am one) to wag their tongues (or fingers).

Superstitions were created by people to explain the unexplainable by trying to draw a connection between coincidental occurrences. They fly in the face of scientific method, of cause and effect, of experimentation, observation, and verification, and should not be taken seriously. You know it, she knows it, we all know it. Chordbanger was trying to make light of some tragic occurrences in her circle of friends, and was sharing with us an odd musical connection. This has no relation to how deaths and injuries actually occur. And to prove it, I am going to go play "The Prisoner's Song" right now. If you never hear from me again, you'll know why, and I will come back from the grave to admit my error and attest to the song's uncanny powers.

[Willie Poole]

I`d be willing to bet that most of us have some little superstition...We all do things that we think will alter the way things happen...Basrball players all have something they do to ward off evil spirits...I feel that they don`t really help but they don`t reaslly hurt either, If they give you the encouragment to do better than they are helpful....I always wanted to be a shrink but my sixth grade education wasn`t enough.....Willie

[allenhopkins]

I don't find Chordbanger's post all that somber or serious...I believe she was being tongue in cheek. We haven't heard from her since the OP, and I hope she's OK, but that's how I see it...Superstitions...fly in the face of scientific method, of cause and effect, of experimentation, observation, and verification, and should not be taken seriously. You know it, she knows it, we all know it. Chordbanger was trying to make light of some tragic occurrences in her circle of friends...

Two dead, one injured, sounds serious to me. Like you, I'll wait to hear from the OP as to our differing reactions to her post.

I wish "we all knew it." Talking to my family on Thanksgiving, and discussing my Mom's memorial service two years ago. A couple of neighbors/friends talked with us there about the death of their mother, who was my mother's friend. They said that since their mother's death, a large crow was often seen around their yard. "I know that's Mother," one of them said; she was serious, too. Never underestimate the capacity of the mind to project its own made-up patterns on the events of our lives.

[Chris Rogers]

I don't believe in superstition either. Just the same, I'm never singing that Prisoner Song.

[journeybear]

I thought I was clear. The events were serious, obviously; her post, somewhat less so. Just my opinion though, which is often irrelevant ...

[brianf]

1. It's bad luck to lay a mandolin behind the wheel of a parked truck.

All three of the times I did it, it got ran over. Don't tell me that superstition isn't justified!!

[Eddie Sheehy]

I've never even heard of the Prisoner song... I'll probably live forever...