In praise of David Ackles

Or, how one song changed my outlook completely

In an effort to regain my sanity, if not my sense of wonder, I have made it a policy for some time to steer aware from machine generated recommendations in place of those made by humans. If someone in my life says to me ‘You should check out this band/film/book’ I make the effort to at least give it a cursory glance. And alongside doing this I also try to avoid Youtube, Spotify and other such ‘if you like that, you’ll like this’ type nudging.

This is an experiment I would recommend to anyone. For the younger readers at home, doing this is how you take your 90’s/00’s nostalgia quest to the next level. Because this is how we did things in that era- we spoke to the (self-appointed) experts in record shops and independent cinemas as well as friends and clued in acquaintances and through this we built an ad hoc knowledge base and sense of taste brick by brick.

But to get back to today’s post. Here we have the always-lucid, always entertaining

Terry Freedman

discoursing on a singer-songwriter who I for one had never heard of. And now I have and soI’m diving in and discovering some nice new songs this afternoon. Hopefully you’ll have a similar experience as well as gaining a new appreciation for all of that music that you discovered by happy accident throughout the years.

Enjoy.

TJB.

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Prison fence, by Terry Freedman

I wrote this early in my Substack “career”, when I had hardly any subscribers. I'm minded to repost it now because Joshua Dolezal has written a goosepimple inducing article. I’ve put a link to it at the end of this. You will no doubt discern why it is relevant to this article about David Ackles.

There was a time when I had no sympathy whatsoever with criminals. Indeed, I wrote an article for my college magazine that basically argued that even the most minor of offences should attract a custodial sentence. Dropped some litter? Six months! Exceeded the speed limit"? Five years plus a consecutive driving ban for for five years.

Upgrade to paid

This was a long time before the appearance of the comic book character Judge Dredd. A police officer and judge rolled into one, and living in a future dystopia, Dredd was not someone you would want to cross. I’ll never forget one strip in which someone reports that he has been mugged. Dredd turns up and arrests him, on the grounds that he shouldn’t have been wearing a watch that somebody might want to mug him for. Talk about victim blaming!

Anyway, I submitted this article to the editor. I ran into him a few days later.

“So what do you think of my article?”, I enquired.

“Well”. He thought for a moment. “It is a bit partisan….'“

It was never published.

A short while after this I listened to a radio programme I didn’t usually tune into (because it was at an awkward time for me), hosted by a DJ called John Peel. He used to play very uncommercial records, not the usual pop rubbish. On this occasion he played a track called Down River, by David Ackles, a Canadian singer, songwriter, pianist.

The song is about someone who has just come out of prison, where he’s been for the last three years. We don’t find out what for. The story is told from his point of view, and is in the form of a conversation with his one-time girlfriend. We don’t hear her speak, but we can surmise what she has said from his responses. Responses such as:

Oh sure, I remember Ben.

Why, we went all through school.

Is that right?

Well, he ain’t no fool.

I thought this was a really clever and original technique — usually in pop songs you’d have a man and a woman taking it turns to sing the lines or verses. Ackles wrote the song as an implied conversation. We’re probably used to this now, because every time you’re near someone with a mobile phone you only hear one side of the conversation but can often guess what the other person has just said. But Down River predated this: it was first released in 1968.

Suddenly, an ex-con was presented as a human being. I found it intensely moving, and I’m sure it made me a much more sympathetic person when I was invited to teach prisoners — see:

Teaching behind bars -- with a postscript

I bought the album the next day, and the following Saturday night I took it over to a friend’s house. We listened to Down River in complete silence — except for the gentle weeping of his girlfriend.

Ackles repeated this technique in Road to Cairo — not the Julie Driscoll version, which is a travesty, but his original. Again told from the protagonist’s point of view, it’s about someone who left his wife and children years ago because he couldn’t bear to see them in poverty. He thumbs a lift, and you hear both his side of the conversation with the driver, and his real thoughts and feelings when he is alone. In the former situation, he is very macho:

Sure, I’ve played and lost,

But who minds the cost?

You gotta take more than you give.

In the latter, he is much more honest:

I had to make my way;

I told her I can’t sty

To see my children poor as sin."

The ending, building to a crescendo (as in Down River) is as depressing as it is inevitable.

Astonishingly, although Ackles was a brilliant songwriter, and influenced many other songwriters and stars, he was never commercially successful. He died at a very young age as well. Perhaps his role in life was to influence and act as a catalyst for others.

Here are the songs I mentioned. First, Down River, then Road to Cairo.

Here is the post I referred to at the beginning of this article:

How folk ballads can help you write better stories

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