Run It Again
(B. Mosley)
appears on Light & Blood
I had a football coach in high school whose mantra during practice was ‘run it again’. Aside from my own father, he had the most imposing presence I had ever witnessed. He had played in the NFL briefly, in Baltimore. He had been an elite athlete, and had an extremely successful coaching career. After retiring from coaching, he was a rancher. He died violently—in a tractor accident, trying to pull a pickup out of a bar ditch. At that time, I hadn’t seen him in 15 years and I had been planning to interview him for a documentary I was making about the dysfunction of privilege & youth violence in the Texas Panhandle.
Years later, when the tsunami hit Sri Lanka in 2004, I thought of Coach Smith for some reason…juxtaposing masculine and feminine forcefulness, I reckon.
EPILOGUE: I had the pleasure of speaking to one of Coach Smith’s sons in 2020. He had been in grade school when I was playing ball in high school for his dad, and I remembered him well…Coach’s boys were always around the practice field. He had happened upon the song and reached out to talk with me about it. It meant a lot to connect the dots with him.
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It ain’t at all about who’s gonna run the world
Choose the fear, you lose the love
So get to divining the demons
Who do the pushing and shoving
Drillin’ spillin’ holes to melt the poles
We’re gonna shit and fall in it ‘fore we know it
Where is there? We’re on a sphere
Every time is now and everywhere is here
Haul in the women and the men
Huddle up god a’mighty let’s run it again
Or just leave it to the trees and seas to sort it out
We are the takers and the keepers
Given to deceiving our own blood and light
Spiteful tumbling like a pair of dice
What with what is happening
What will come around?
We gonna wake up and wonder
Or keep sleeping unsafe and unsound
Can’t withstand the mystery
If’n the question outruns the answer
Seen a wrinkle on the planet
Pumpin’ surf into the jungle…winning hands down
Smitty said, “Hit ’em right square in the Adam’s Apple.”
And, “Kick their butts ’til their noses bleed buttermilk”
What are we learning?
Smitty hauled off and backed a tractor over his own heart
Under the ground the wheels are turning.
‘Cause there ain’t never been a winnin’ warrior
Nunca nada but losing about it
But get a woman to feelin’ the power
And get a man to feelin’ the love
Ya turn loose of the rope and it’s actually
Quite a bit sweeter without it
Fall in the puddle in the middle together
With one more tug
Haul in the women and the men
Huddle up god a’mighty let’s run it again
Or just leave it to the trees and seas to sort it out
We are the takers and the keepers
Given to deceiving our own blood and light
Spiteful tumbling like a pair of dice