Joe South - Games People Play

Every Night and Every Day

1. Joe South’s Games People Play is the one song I wish I had written more than any of the others. That first sentence is entirely true and my thoughts on the matter haven’t changed in 20 years (Dad, feel free to testify). I’ve heard a lot of things that rang true on the hunt for the Capital T Truth. Whereas other songs have snippets of it - a line here, a verse there, an entire chorus perhaps - Games never fails to deliver in totality. IN TOTALITY. There’s little poetic license to ponder over. All the idioms are clearly understood with no battle fought and no argument to be had. You might be running through a mental list of all your favorite songs, and you love them for one reason or another. Maybe You probably went searching too if you’re so inclined to read my stuff. I have a few Dylan songs in mind that come close, and some Hank Williams songs too. Joni Mitchell always comes through in a pinch. A couple of Cohen songs worked for me in my especially poetic years. Tom Waits songs (as already discussed) found a way into my heart for the same reason Cohen did. The Weight, Working Class Hero, and End of the Line always held such gravity. None of those songs, Dylan included, were as all-encompassingly accurate to my life as Games People Play.

2. Folk songs persist because they’re a prism through which we see cultures, and by extension, ourselves. There will be folk songs anywhere people are making music on this planet. We see ourselves through that prism and we reflect it. What Joe saw and commented on is a handful of those enduring aspects of the human condition we don’t necessarily discuss as frequently as we should. Maybe we’re just too damned afraid to point our high-powered fingers of observation at ourselves. He saw inhumanity and contempt. He saw irresponsibility and intolerance. He saw us, to paraphrase him, giving up sanity for pride and vanity, and well… *GESTURES TO EVERYTHING* We could, as a nation, use several lengthy therapy sessions and then make a conscious choice not to post about them on America’s social media account. I know Joe was a country-pop singer-songwriter. Games is a folk song - not because of the style of music, but because he’s singing to us about us. We’re folk.

3. The greatest songs are the most accessible. We understand them innately, and they speak to us on our own terms. This is why I sob when I hear Joni’s Both Sides Now, and Springsteen’s Badlands. It’s incredibly difficult, which is why I write this and why I did not write not Into the Mystic. Games People Play is why I reconciled with my mother and stepfather. I didn’t want to wait until I was covered up in the back of a black limousine to find peace of mind. Games is why I apologized to the, admittedly, long list of people I hurt during my heaviest years of drinking. I didn’t want to hope they were to blame for the rest of my life. Joe South’s finest hour was not merely a well-written song or finely-crafted tune to me - It was a set of instructions.