Ozark Mountain Daredevils

(Click Pic to See Video!)

Ooh-hoo, Jackie Blue

 Making wishes that never come true

 Going places where you've never been

 Ooh Jackie, you're going again...

"Jackie Blue"

Up until four minutes ago, I didn't know the lead singer was a guy. I've heard this song probably 6,000 times since '74 and automatically thought it was a girl. It's the same reaction I had to Nick Gelder's “Hot Child in the City.” I thought he was a girl too, till I saw the video.

“Jackie Blue” is a great song but completely insensitive or at best, somewhat ignorant. I'd listen to the lyrics and been reminded of people like Jackie. You've known them too. People who live inside their heads or daydream constantly, doing their best to avoid the here and now. They managed to connect to the day to day world long enough to meet the demands life places on them, then they retreat to their inner world where it's “better.”

Fucked up in the head? Crazy? Not playing with a full deck? That's right.

And the reason they are is because they're nearly destroyed by PTSD. Living in your head may be simple denial but it's better than living in the present where the horrid event of your past gets to nag you constantly. Denial/avoidance may be simple but it's a powerful defense your psyche activates when faced with events that it cannot manage. This usually occurs in childhood where you don't have the coping mechanisms ready to combat whatever truly horrendous situation confronts you. Even adults get bent by this. Survive a plane crash, live through a B-52 bombing or whatever bizarre violent circumstance and you come away a changed person, perhaps VERY changed.

Would the writer of Jackie Blue say: “So, go see a therapist, get over it!”

It's not that easy Clyde.

The only thing the best and the brightest in the therapy field can do is somehow, someway, make you incorporate the memories into you, make them part of you and then teach you how to manage it. It's no curative, but mitigation. It works well from some people and not so well with others. The point being is that you carry this with you for the rest of you life like one would carry multiple sclerosis. You just don't “get over it.” And at worst, it crops up again and again like zits, only to have you beat it down again.

Ok, I'll stop...I'm harping on my days in the social service field.

I like the song, it 's great. One/Two Hit Wonders like these guys always have a place in my collection.