Elegy for Free Bird

Last week Bob Boilen, Robin Hilton and Stephen Thompson convened on NPR’s All Songs Considered to deliberate what familiar songs need to be retired. “They are often beloved classics, or works of pure genius,” Boilen wrote in the accompanying post. “And you never, ever need to hear them again.” You might be able to guess which ones made the cut of needing to be cut. Among them was Alabama poet laureate emeritus Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”, the 1973 power ballad which, regrettably, as Thompson pointed out, is perhaps the most mockingly requested tune at concerts, a joke anymore as bad as telling someone “See you next year” on New Year’s Eve. The argument as presented by All Things Considered was not, mind you, that “Free Bird” itself was bad. No, like Boilen wrote, it is a classic, perhaps pure genius. The song, as Thompson noted, means a lot to a lot of people. The case for retiring “Free Bird” added up to the song becoming, as Hilton said, “A parody of itself. It’s been so used that nobody takes it seriously anymore.”

“Elizabethtown” (2005) is not a movie most people took/take seriously, except for this blog as so many loyal frustrated followers can loyally frustratingly attest. And much like Usain Bolt should have retired after Rio, and much like Muhammad Ali should have retired after beating Leon Spinks, “Free Bird” should have been retired after “Elizabethtown.” As Hilton said on All Songs Considered, “Any time there’s some big goodbye on TV, or films, I don’t what it is, ‘Free Bird’ is what they call up.” Indeed, he referenced (and played a snippet of) Will Ferrell channeling Ronnie Van Zant on the final episode of Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show in early 2010. That moment seemed a winking acknowledgement of the choice’s banality, and Hilton suggested as much too, saying “They’re making a joke out of it because they know it’s become this cliché.” It was – and this was classic Conan – a serious moment not taking itself seriously. In “Elizabethtown”, however, “Free Bird” is called up with rightful earnestness.

During the film’s pivotal sequence at the funeral of Mitch Baylor, father to Drew (Orlando Bloom), protagonist, Cousin Jessie (Paul Schneider) re-unites his coulda-been band Ruckus for a one-night-only performance, a scenario which tinges death with something like a tease of rebirth, or just one more moment to live. Naturally Ruckus plays perhaps Skynyrd’s greatest Innyrd.

When they do, the scene briefly cuts outside the room where Drew and and Claire (Kirsten Dunst) – The [redacted] – hear the time-honored intro. As they do, Claire smirks, not so much skeptically as wearily, and remarks “‘Free Bird’, huh?”, a sly concession to the power ballad’s inevitability in the chosen context. But Crowe is not placing “Free Bird” here to make fun of it. No, the people in the audience are the people Thompson was talking about, the ones for whom the song truly means something; young and old alike, they all rise to their feet and put their hands together when that riff gets played.

True, the sequence eventually devolves into comical mishap when the giant papier-mâché bird that Cousin Jessie has crafted to go sailing over the crowd on a wire as the song reaches its pinnacle goes awry, the ersatz phoenix not rising from the ashes but inadvertently catching on fire, crash landing, setting off the sprinklers, unleashing mayhem. It is, I have written before, Crowe seeming to dream up an elaborate sequence as a shrewd means to have an Indoor Goodbye in the Rain. But now I wonder if an Indoor Goodbye in the Rain was merely a byproduct.

Even as the faux rain falls, Ruckus keeps right on playing, right through its homage to the real thing’s guitar solo, seeing the song to its dramatic end. It might be Ruckus’s last stand, but it just as easily could have been the song’s last stand too. In sending that bird up in flames, Crowe visually encapsulated exactly what the All Songs Considered crew was lobbying for, putting “Free Bird” out to pasture by burning it down.

The Greatest Walk of Shame (That Isn't Really A Walk of Shame)

A negative connotation surrounds the cultural phrase Walk of Shame. As Urban Dictionary defines it via its always eloquent prose, a walk of shame is "when you leave someone's house with the same clothes you had on the night before." This walk is generally viewed through the prism of regret, like Ashley Judd's character in "Come Early Morning" always sliding out of bed post-one night stand and slinking away or Charlize Theron in "Young Adult" slinking out of her own bed and her own house and still slinking away. But what if a Walk of Shame isn't shameful? What if it's a Walk of Joy Mixed With Melancholy That Finds Triumph In Embarrassment? Ah, then you have the walk of "Elizabethtown's" one & only Claire Colburn, the original [redacted].

Let's break it down, shall we, frame by whimsical frame.

Well, this is the how the Walk of Shame begins - Claire memorializing it with one of her patented mental pictures. And so straight away we know that shame can't really be involved. She wants to remember it, hold onto it, not let it end.

She leaves a flower beside the ashes of Drew's father. Another sign of the non-shame of this Walk of Shame. I mean, that's just so......nice. (Slate Magazine, I believe, criticized the choice of flower, advising Claire that "she did it wrong", citing Lilies as the optimal choice.) 

Here she strolls down the hall of The Brown Hotel with her head hung and her shoulders slumped. That is not shame, however, but sorrowful nostalgia for what has just passed. (Testify, sister.)

Love this shot. Love it, love it, love it. The way Kirsten poses, like she's trying to maintain a positivity in the face of sadness (and sorta failing), while the balloons chill in the bottom of the righthand side of the frame, gleeful taunts.

Elevator. Goin' down. Facing reality. Buck up. "I don't wanna buck up!!!!!!" BUCK UP!!!!!!

With a ding, the elevator doors open.

Hearing all manner of noises - like, say, a ginormous wedding party - in the lobby, Claire freaks the eff out.

"Love that dress!" Cuz, you know, it's the dress Claire was, like, totally wearing the night before.

Nobly, she assumes a smile of good humor and walks the walk. You got this, Claire. You got this!

Chuck (of Chuck and Cindy, the to-be-married couple staying next door to Drew at the Brown Hotel, "Loving Life/Loving You") is in the hotel lobby at, what, ten in the morning, drinking a beer. Respect. (Also, until this screen shot, I never noticed the older lady in blue to the right. Even she's into this non-Walk of Shame.)

Just take the cheers and the guffaws and the "you go, girls!" and just go, girl.

Owning it. #FuckYeah

Saying Goodbye To [redacted]

"Dragon clouds so high above 

I’ve only known careless love 

It’s always hit me from below 

This time around it’s more correct 

Right on target, so direct 

You're gonna make me lonesome when you go."