52: A Song About a Beverage

52. "Root Beer Rag" by Billy Joel [Video: Root Beer Rag.]

Growing up as a Mormon kid in southeast Idaho, I lived a pretty sheltered life. I didn't hear a lot of adults using casual profanity around children unless cows were somehow involved. (Working with cows brings out the swear words in even the most devout Mormons.)

So, I found it a bit jarring when my Grandpa Melton casually flung some profanity my way. Of course, he wasn't the typical Idaho Mormon farmer that I was used to dealing with. He was a hardened blue collar worker from the deep South. Still, it threw me off when I heard him cuss when the cussing wasn't in anger.

I remember two specific incidents. The first happened one day when I was relieving him from tractor-driving duty on the farm. He was helping my Dad on the farm, and he had been driving the big Case tractor for most of the day. I was going to take his place and drive the tractor for the rest of the day. When he got off the tractor he seemed to be in a good mood. He smiled at me and said, "Don't f**k up my tractor!" I was pretty much dumbfounded. I'd never had the "f" word thrown my direction like that before. I'm not sure if I even was able to muster a response.

What does this have to do with the HondoJoe Top 200? Well, the second time Grandpa Melton shot some unexpected profanity my way, it had a little something to do with this song.

I was with my Mom and Grandpa Melton, and we were shopping at the Cache Valley Mall in Logan, Utah. It was at some point after the release of Billy Joel's Songs In the Attic album. I had liked the album so much that I was going back and collecting the earlier albums that the songs on Song In the Attic originally came from.

On this particular day in Logan, I purchased a cassette of Billy Joel's album Streetlife Serenade. We were back in the car and Grandpa Melton started up a casual conversation with me. He asked me what I had purchased. I told him I bought some music. He asked what it was, and asked to look at the cassette. I took it out of my bag and gave it to him.

It was then that Grandpa Melton looked over the cassette in his hand, shook his head in disapproval, and dismissively said, "Streetlife serenade? Sh*t."

I'm not sure why he said it. Maybe he thought Billy Joel had no idea what "street life" was. Maybe he thought that a small town Idaho farm boy and "street life" had no business sharing the same automobile. Or, maybe he just wanted to say sh*t. I'm not really sure.

Of course, "Root Beer Rag" was one of the songs I discovered when I bought Streetlife Serenade, so I'm still glad I made that purchase, despite what my Grandpa might have thought of it at the time.

It's a fun song, and it brings to mind one of my favorite beverages. I like root beer. I like Virgil's, Henry Weinhard, A&W, Stewart's, Hire's, Barq's, and, of course, Mug. (Heck, I even like Shasta root beer!)

COMING UP NEXT: A song about a garbage truck?