Sunday Music: Trying To Ignore The Elephant (Somehow)

3 recent deaths, one milestone birthday, and I’m thinking a lot about the lots we draw in what’s turned into a lot of life (not, ahem, enough yet, just for the record). Jason Isbell’s “Elephant” keeps playing in my head all the while.

It’s a song about a friend with cancer. It’s a song about the preciousness of life. It’s a song about the inevitability of death, the elephant we try our best to ignore by filling our spaces and passing our time.

The last nerve is exposed but he’s still holding one hand over it. He captures something here, in how he makes us see the elephant and promptly want to get back to ignoring it. Read the lyrics, take a listen, and look, even if it’s just for a second. We have to.

She said, “Andy, you’re better than your past”Winked at me and drained her glassCross-legged on a barstool, like nobody sits anymoreShe said, “Andy, you’re taking me home”But I knew she planned to sleep aloneI’d carry her to bed, sweep up the hair from her floorIf I’d fucked her before she got sickI’d never hear the end of itShe don’t have the spirit for that nowWe just drink our drinks and laugh out loudAnd bitch about the weekend crowdAnd try to ignore the elephant somehowSomehowShe said, “Andy, you crack me up”Seagram’s in a coffee cupSharecropper eyes, and the hair almost all goneWhen she was drunk, she made cancer jokesMade up her own doctors’ notesSurrounded by her family, I saw that she was dying aloneBut I’d sing her classic country songsAnd she’d get high and sing alongShe don’t have a voice to sing with nowWe burn these joints in effigyAnd cry about what we used to beTry to ignore the elephant somehowSomehowI buried her a thousand times, given up my place in lineBut I don’t give a damn about that nowThere’s one thing that’s real clear to meNo one dies with dignityWe just try to ignore the elephant somehowWe just try to ignore the elephant somehowWe just try to ignore the elephant somehowSomehowSomehow