In this bonus episode of BackStory, friends of the site and former Artists in Residence These United States share the story behind their song “Old John Chapman Takes a Good Long Walk.” Their six-week tour starts this Thursday in Chicago. You can find dates and info at http://www.myspace.com/theseunited or http://www.facebook.com/theseunitedstates.

Most people know John Chapman, if they know him at all, as Johnny Appleseed.  Crazy guy, wandered around the Midwest, sometimes further, cooking pot on his head, satchel full of appleseeds he tossed out across the land everywhere he went.  I’m related to him, apparently — the real guy that the rest of the legend is built up around.  His name’s in our family Bible in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and he’s buried a mile from my grandma Bonnie’s house.  I always loved this obscure historical tidbit, growing up.  I thought about him a lot.  Wondered where he was in his life when I was at that same point in mine.  He became a kind of contemporary of my youth, in that way – an imaginary friend from the past who was always very much alive in my daydream in school, or later on the road.  Can’t remember when I finally put some of these thoughts to paper, but ironically I think it was on a train across France once (Johnny A’s as American as…well, you know…)  Came out in one big burst.  Not about me, of course - not actually MY story, like the first line says.  Just a story that belongs to anyone that covers a lot of ground.  Running from what? Bad decisions?  Creeping old age?  The slow and sturdy death the world imposes on us everyday?  Maybe just running towards something wonderful instead, knowing that the orchards are sown in motion?  I like to think John Chapman would’ve said Yes to all those, and added a few more of his own.  I hope I bump into him somewhere someday so I can ask.

 

Old John Chapman Takes a Good Long Walk

As far as stories go, mine is the best one that I know.

Though it’s the only one I truly know – so, well, you know…

And yet as time thieves, tides, and bounds, slips left or right, side up or down

I fear I feel even my own ink quickly draining

Out with then!  Before my pen is sucked in old age white and thin,

I’ll scrawl for sins and salvations, reflections fading.

And though it’s so hard to detail, it is quite simple to sum it:

I went to bed brass, and I woke up a trumpet.

 

Now I’m playing God.  I’m tumbling dice.

I’m thinking once, not twice.

I’m thinking big, not nice, necessarily.

I’ve got a plan, but it’s my own.

I’m sick of death and flesh and bone.

I’m thinking all you people – all of you – are just scaring me

So here I go.  I boot the road.

I smash the gravel under toe.

I turn the sun around and show the moon a thing or two.

I’m dodging God; I’m made to move,

a hungry hunddog’s twitching tooth.

I’m rearranging battle maps they drew at Waterloo!

I am no Father’s fool – claim no vessel nor tool.

At best, mutiny’s crew – itself a jab at Zeus.

What was I telling you?

What? Was I telling you?

What was I? Telling you…

 

Ah, yes! So, waking as a yawp, my bonnet bee’d, shook soda popped,

blinking around about the kingdom in whose reign I’d been dropped off,

I coughed and sputtered to a start, turned twice the crank nailed to my heart.

I felt I feared birds’ dream of clouds go sickly bleeding.

Shake dust off, wings! These prisoners’ rings,

encrusted diamond death of things –

fly, sing, promote notes towards the throats of landlords deeding!

Because as its whipping accomplice wind stretched growing skin,

strengthened and stiffened, I saw the sun

is not chicken; it’s indifferent.

 

So I’m pitting God against these eyes. I’m thinking heaven’s not so high

and mighty; thinking flight, not fight, but are you feeling me?

All these desires fester untold,

mad Master’s piece we’d pluck to mold.

I’m thinking: this is me, and that is me, but what is really me?

So sound the bells, and fig the trees!

My breath is bigger than the breeze.

I wrap the wind into a seed and sow it, deep in, too.

I’m mocking God, a mimic king – I care no more for her or him.

Tecumseh, time to wind that train back to Tippecanoe!

Head beaten red and blue,

come killing two by two.

They put the fear in you.

There’s nothing left to prove.

They tried to take our birth.

If lost, return to earth.

If lost, return to earth.

If lost, return to the earth.