"Beautiful Fool"
Written by Don Henry
Copyright © 1991 Sony Cross Keys Pub. Co. Inc. (ASCAP)
My good friend Don Henry wrote this eloquent song and I've listened to him for years perform it to hushed crowds at the Bluebird Café in Nashville. It so captures my experience from childhood growing up during the years of the civil rights movement and Walter Cronkite and Walt Disney.
Actually, when I was 9 to 11 years old, we lived in Germany since my father was in the Airforce. At that young age I remember being taken on a school field trip to Daukau, one of the largest concentration camps in World War ll. Looking back now I'd have to say that I was far too young to see what I saw that day. Of course at some point every person should learn of the atrocities of the holocaust, but it was overwhelming for a young 10 year old child to comprehend and be face to face with the ovens and walk into the showers. Nevertheless, I did that and it forever changed my perspective.
I pretty much grew up moving from one airforce base to the other, which is not unlike being in a bubble. Most of the kids in the other families in the bubble also bounced from bubble to bubble and we sort of had our own world. Kids of all different skin tones and creeds co-existed without the usual amount of cultural differences. The culture of the "bubble" seemed to out-weigh the root culture of our ancestry. So, living in Germany on yet another air force base, as I studied about the Holocaust or Ghandi or the Civil Rights movement that was taking place in my own country at that time, I struggled to understand just what was taking place within people that they could hate an entire group of people based on their color or creed.
In 1969, in the wake of the murder of Martin Luther King, my father got his orders to move the family to Montgomery Alabama. I was absolutely terrified from what I'd been reading and learning about in school, that I was going to live in a terrible place. To make matters more unsettling, for the first time in my childhood my family was going to live in a regular neighborhood outside "the bubble" of the airforce base.
My family is still based in Montgomery, which is where I completed high school. The culture shock of learning to navigate deep deep woundedness between the races while also trying to make friends and find my balance in all of it, has shaped me as a person so much. I learned that there were impenetrable walls between people sometimes and that sometimes no amount of arguing or words made any difference.
Which brings me back to this song. "Beautiful Fool" in it's sweet narrative tone says more to soften the hatred and gently points to the idiocy of racism across all lines. Taking the satirical point of view, much like Randy Newman does in some of his songs like "Short People" and "Rednecks", Don Henry displays this character who's wisdom unfolds in the telling of the story.
Thank you Don for putting such a remarkable song in the world!
I recorded this one in my home studio with my son playing drums and his beautiful wife Jessie playing bass. Oh yes...and Don playing guitar!
Martin Luther who did you think that you were?
Appointed by some higher up
Merely mortal, your plans were unaffordable
No one wants to pay for love
Oh you beautiful fool
Swimmin up stream, kickin' up waves
Dreams weren't meant to come true
That's why they call 'em dreams
Oh you beautiful fool
Walter Cronkite pre-empted Disney one night
And all us kids were so upset
We thought that you were a trouble instigator
Marchin' through our T.V. set
To fight a fight without a fist all human instinct puzzles this
How dare you threaten our existence
Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Christ, history repeats itself so nice
Consistently we are resistant to love
I saw you on the black and white
With Blacks and White's applauding you
I saw you on another time
Without a sign of life in you
(chorus)
Produced by BNC & David Leonard
Recorded and Mixed by David Leonard
at Treehouse Studio
BNC: Vocals & keyboards & synth,
Guitar: Don Henry
Piano: Mat Rollings
Drums: Ernest Chapman
Percussion: Tripp Dudley
Bass: Jessie Friedman
Bg Vocals: Jonathan Hamilton, Offensa
Ernest Chapman,
Strings Conducted and arranged by Joseph Arthur*
click on any cover
for more information
