Waylon Jennings - Lonesome, On'ry and Mean

For Bull

1. I once picked a fight in the Fort Meade Navy barracks with the intent to never throw a punch. I wanted to take one, and I did. I did the same thing outside a budget casino in Primm, Nevada, just a baseball throw from the California line, for the same reason. A woman. On both occasions, I was feeling lonesome, on’ry, and mean. Look, the way it’s said matters. It is decidedly not onery. It’s not or·ner·y. It’s On-Re. On’ry. Not three syllables. Two. Ask anyone from the South. More to the point, it means a different kind of bad-tempered and combative. I didn’t know that when I took those punches. It took one Brian Waylon Cain to explain it to me. Brian Waylon Cain was named after Waylon Jennings. According to his father, Perry, his middle name was going to be either Chivas, after the blended Scotch, or Waylon, after the outlaw country legend. His mother picked Waylon, and we are all thankful for that act of discretion. Those of us who know Brian Waylon Cain best refer to him as Bull. It’s a small handful who can claim to know him best. Bull introduced me to Waylon Jennings one night in our apartment.

   I recall it was one of those oppressive nights, the kind where the night itself feels like a weight pressing down on you. I was sprawled on the couch in the apartment I shared with Brian, my Navy buddy from the destroyer John Paul Jones. We’d met in the spring of ‘99, two lost souls adrift in the vast machinery of the military-industrial complex. Brian is a wiry gunfight of a man from Tahlequah, Oklahoma by way of Victoria, Texas who I’ve seen take a pull of a Scotch bottle in his sleep. He’s loyal to a fault, angry to varying degrees, and while he came of age in the Grunge era he was weened on those outlaws we’ve come to adore.

2. The air was thick with the blue stench of cigarettes and the faint aroma of the sea, a lingering reminder of our days on deck. We were halfway through a bottle of bourbon, the liquid fire working its way through our veins, when Brian decided it was time to expand my musical arsenal. Waylon’s voice was a revelation. Booming and unfiltered, it carried the weight of a thousand barroom brawls and endless nights on the road. His presence was almost tangible, a spectral figure in the room with us, larger than life and twice as hard.

   Waylon had the aura of a man who'd been places and seen things, his voice the gravelly echo of highways and honky-tonks. Each word he sang felt like a sucker punch, hitting with a raw, unvarnished truth that laid bare the bones of existence. Brian watched me with a knowing grin as the music filled the room. Waylon, finally out from the crippling contract that stifled his creativity, had full control of the album. Unfettered by the bonds of RCA, both he and the band were in electrifying form.

   “This is the kind of music that speaks to your soul if you’ve got the guts to listen,” Brian said. I nodded, the bourbon and the music working together to strip away my defenses. Waylon’s lyrics painted a picture of a man who’d seen too much. It would be easy to say life battered Waylon, but he invited it, caused it, and moved things into place specifically to make his life more difficult. I empathized and commiserated. My years in the Navy had been a series of grueling voyages, both literal and metaphorical. I’d traveled alone on buses and trains and certainly crossed paths with heartbreak and loss. There was a kinship in Waylon’s voice, a shared understanding of that brand of loneliness.

   On a Greyhound bus Lord I'm travelin' this morning
   I'm goin' to Shreveport and down to New Orleans
   Been trav'lin' these highways and doin' things my way
   It's been making me lonesome on'ry and mean

   -Waylon Jennings, Lonesome, On'ry and Mean

3. As the song played on, I felt that connection grow increasingly powerful. Waylon could take the punches and would come back up swinging, he’d found a way to turn his pain into something powerful and enduring. It was the same spirit that had drawn me to punk rock, it was the same vein, the same pool of rebellious intent. We sat there for hours, the bourbon flowing freely, the music looping over and over. Waylon’s voice became the soundtrack to our shared history, a reminder of the bonds forged in the crucible of the Navy and the unspoken understanding between two best friends.

   By the time the sun began to creep over the horizon, I knew I’d been changed. Waylon Jennings had opened a door to a new kind of truth, one that transcended genres and spoke directly to the soul. It was a truth forged in the fires of rebellion and tempered by the hard realities of life on the road. Brian clapped me on the shoulder, a satisfied smile on his face. “Welcome to the club, brother.”

   Waylon’s presence lingered, a ghost in the early morning light, a testament to the enduring power of a voice that could cut through the din and speak directly to the heart. His music had a way of distilling life, stripping away the pretense and leaving only the truth. It was a truth that resonated deeply, a reminder that no matter how far we traveled or how lost we felt, there was always a way to find our way back home.