Friday PSTSS: "If I Had a Boat"

This is probably apocryphal (if it comes from an interview, it's not one I've been able to find online anywhere), but supposedly when Lyle Lovett was asked about this song--from his excellent early album Pontiac, though you can also get it on collections like Cowboy Man--he said it was inspired by his childhood confusion over what he wanted to be when he grew up: a pirate, or a cowboy? Much as I doubt the story, I sure hope it's true. It's perfect! After all, what do most little boys want to do? To go after those open spaces, that's what, whether they be the distant horizon or the Texas plains. Why compromise? You don't need a masked ranger to make you do some dirty job, and you definitely don't need a Dale to domesticate you and make you clean up after yourself--you're young and free, you can move like lightning and leave no tracks behind you, and you can take your pony on your boat and ride him and take care of him and watch movies with him and steer across the open seas to your hearts content. Take that, Mr. Grow-Up-and-Take-Your-Place-in-Society!

I mock the individualist mentality here plenty, because I don't agree with it philosophically and because I think it's often harmful. But that doesn't mean I'd like to extinguish it: it's part of the modern package, an inheritance of millions of people struggling for hundreds of years to figure out social systems where, dammit, they can go buy a pony and boat if that's their dream. Lyle here is a poet of that sensibility, that longing which, at its best, is a mature, responsible, quiet insistence (if not defiance) that is a reminder to us all. So take it away, Mr. Lovett, you and all my Texan and libertarian friends (one of whom first introduced me to this song years ago, during a long drive across west Texas from Dallas to San Angelo). I probably won't ever join you on that boat, but hell, sometimes even I would just like to ride or sail away.

If I had a boat,
I'd go out on the ocean.
And if I had a pony,
I'd ride him on my boat.
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean--
Me upon my pony on my boat.

If I were Roy Rogers,
I'd sure enough be single--
I couldn't bring myself to marrying old Dale.
It'd just be me and Trigger--
We'd go riding through them movies,
Then we'd buy a boat and on the sea we'd sail.

And if I had a boat,
I'd go out on the ocean.
And if I had a pony,
I'd ride him on my boat.
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean--
Me upon my pony on my boat

The mystery masked man was smart--
He got himself a Tonto,
'Cause Tonto did the dirty work for free.
But Tonto he was smarter,
And one day said kemo sabe:
"Kiss my ass I bought a boat,
I'm going out to sea."

And if I had a boat,
I'd go out on the ocean.
And if I had a pony,
I'd ride him on my boat.
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean--
Me upon my pony on my boat.

And if I were like lightning,
I wouldn't need no sneakers--
I'd come and go wherever I would please.
And I'd scare 'em by the shade tree,
And I'd scare 'em by the light pole,
But I would not scare my pony on my boat out on the sea.

And if I had a boat,
I'd go out on the ocean.
And if I had a pony,
I'd ride him on my boat.
And we could all together,
Go out on the ocean--
Me upon my pony on my boat.