If My Heart Had Windows
Artist: George Jones
Label/Year: Musicor Records, 1968
I’m not sure what was my earliest introduction to George Jones. Probably at the Court ‘n House bar in Eau Claire, Wis., where 25-plus years ago a friend and I would meet on occasion for a cheap greasy breakfast and watch all the third-shifters coming off work to drink beer and listen to country music—old country music, Faron Young heavy on the rotation and, likely, George Jones.
It could also be his name mentioned by Lloyd Cole, one of the musicians that helped break me out of the classic rock and top-40 genres that was dumped upon us suburban Twin Cities kids like an avalanche. Cole, with his band, The Commotions, and as a solo artist, blew up pop rock for me with smart, acerbic lyrics that didn’t fear treading into the obscure (and, some might argue, grandiloquence).
Anyhoo.
Cole mentions Jones in the song, “To The Church,” on his eponymous 1990 album. You can find and listen to this quick gem and arrive at whatever epiphanies you wish. The line in question, “Can’t you find me some George Jones on your radio,” is not the theme of the song. It’s an enriching detail.
For me, at the time, it was one more key to unlock another genre. I sought out some George Jones, and found that I had heard a number of his hits that were about as unavoidable as Johnny Cash if you’re into that country era: roughly two minute stories, often insightful and sometimes brilliant, that didn’t fear wandering into manhood’s dark corners and insecurities (for Jones, often managed by self medicating).
All that said, once I realized I had heard Jones’s tunes and satisfied my curiosity, he never stuck to me as Cash and Merle Haggard did. I always appreciated the singers that wrote their own songs a bit more, for reasons based entirely on ignorance—Jones wrote most his own stuff early on; it wasn’t until the 1960s that he began singing others’ lyrics, likely because (my own summation) he was hitting the bottle hard. He did not write any songs recorded for this album.
Fortunately, one fact about Jones did stick with me: Many of those country songwriters and singers of that era said that if they could sing like anyone, they’d want to sing like Jones. (Waylon Jennings even put the sentiment to lyrics in his song, “It’s Alright”: “If we all sounded like we wanted to, we’d all sound like George Jones.”)
Fast forward to the recent past where my wife and I were searching out Christmas presents for each other and at Electric Fetus we stumbled upon some vinyl, one of the pieces being this George Jones album, If My Heart Had Windows, which he released in 1968. Who can resist an album cover with a guy in a red suit during the Holiday season? The two hit songs from the album—the title track and “Say It’s Not You” reached top-ten country charts.
Jones was a master of a style of country music that would disappear from the mainstream for a stretch while country morphed into highly produced sounds that I defended myself against in college with loud volleys of The Replacements and The Clash. Finally, those old-school artists (Cash most notably) were “rediscovered” in the 1990s. Even Keith Richards paid tribute to the genre and the influence: he recorded a duet with Jones, covering “Say It’s Not You,” in 1994. And, of course, Lloyd Cole, mentioned above, an English pop master, was another among many who were clearly influenced by Jones’s singing style.
The album is also notable for two unflattering items: one is a folk-rock protest song of sorts, an attempt by Jones and his handlers to insert him into the politics of the era as other artists had done—that politics largely being the Vietnam War. (Jones wasn’t comfortable with the effort, as he was admittedly not of that crowd, and released the single, “Unwanted Babies” under a pseudonym before its inclusion on this album.) It’s not the worst song musically one could listen to, but lyrically it’s a mash-up at best. It could be about the poor treatment of Vietnam veterans returning home from war, but the song is so incongruent it could be about something else. And the “unwanted babies on the way” lyric means the refugees that the US, despite our military adventurism being the cause of their arrival, didn’t want to help. Or something else entirely.
The second bad decision likely turned some heads among the enlightened in 1968, and is truly cringeworthy today. The song, “The Poor Chinee” is… well, here’s a couple lines from the first verse:
“My name-a Sinsin me come from China / Biggy low ship I come along here.”
It does not get better. It’s an uncomfortable reminder of what remained acceptable mainstream entertainment during that tumultuous decade, ranking right up there with Mickey Rooney’s character in the 1961 film, “Breakfast At Tiffany’s.”
We’ve reached a point now where even the context of history doesn’t make listening to a song such as “The Poor Chinee” any easier, and that is a good thing. That one song spoils what otherwise would be an album one would expect from one of these mid-late-twentieth-century country masters: tight tales of love lost and longing, some of ‘em toe-tapping with tight guitar work, others mournful ballads with backing vocals and the tinkling piano notes. But, once you’ve listened to the record once, you know that song is there, lurking as the last track on side two.
