At various times in his checkered life, Partch was a hobo, and "The Wayward" is a chronicle of those experiences. Partch's titles and subtitles tell his tale, from "Barstow: Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions from a Highway Railing at Barstow, California" to "San Francisco: A Setting of the Cries of Newsboys on a Foggy Night in the Twenties" to "The Letter: A Depression Message From a Hobo Friend" to "U.S. Highball: A Musical Account of a Transcontinental Hobo Trip."
Barstow: Eight Hitchhiker Inscriptions from a Highway Railing at Barstow, California:
Here the music transcends the almost pointillistic daubs of the "Intrusions" and becomes a dense, flowing symphony of twanging, plunking, tapping, purling microtonal moans and sighs. The sheer junkiness of the sounds, their homemade, crazy-true authority, seems a proper analogue of hobo life. Partch's musical constructions are like Simon Rodia's Watts Towers in Los Angeles, funky, obsessive and grand..."
The words of Barstow are funny, profane, touching, and cynical - like Partch's music itself (in this performance the spoken words are performed by the composer)
Number One
[spoken] It's January twenty-six. I'm freezing. Ed Fitzgerald, Age nineteen. five feet ten inches, black hair, brown eyes. Going home to Boston Massachusetts, It's four p.m., and I'm hungry and broke. I wish I was dead. But today I am a man.
[sung] Going home to Boston, yuh-huh, Massachusetts. It's four p.m., and I'm hungry and broke. I wish I was dead. But today I am a man -- Oh-- O, I'm going home-- to Boston, yuh-huh, Massachusetts.
Number Two
[spoken] Gentlemen: Go to five-thirty East Lemon Avenue, Monrovia, California, for an easy handout.
[sung] Go to five-thirty East Lemon Avenue, in Monrovia for an easy handout, gentlemen. Yo-ho-ho -- Yoo-hoo-hooo -- Ya-ha-ha-- Yee-hee-hee-- Go to five-thirty East Lemon Avenue, in Monrovia for an easy handout, gentlemen. Yo-ho-ho -- Yoo-hoo-hooo -- Ya-ha-ha -- Yee-hee-hee
Number Three
[spoken] Marie Blackwell. Age nineteen. Brown eyes, brown hair, considered pretty. One-eighteen East Ventura Street, Las Vegas, Nevada. Object: matrimony.
[sung] Age nineteen, Brown eyes, brown hair, Oh, but I'm considered pretty. Here's where I live-Dah dah dah dah -- One-eighteen East Ventura Street, Las Vegas, Nevada. Taa -- Ta-ta-ta ta-ta-ta-ta-ta -- ta-ta-ta -- ta-ta-taa- My object is - Yoo-hoo-hoo - Matrimony!
Number Four
[intoned] Dear Marie, a very good idea you have there. I too am on the lookout for a suitable mate. My description -- No description follows, so he evidently got his ride.
Number Five
[intoned] Possible rides: January sixteenth, fifty-eight. January seventeenth, seventy-six. January eighteenth, nineteen. January nineteenth, six. January twentieth, eleven. To hell with it -- I'm going to walk!
Number Six
[ad lib] Jesus was God in the flesh.
[sung] Hey hey hey -- Jesus-- Jesus was God in the fle-esh Hey hey hey -- Hey hey hey -- Hey hey -- Jesus was God in the flesh. Hey hey hey - Jesus -- Jesus was God in the fle-esh Hey hey hey -- Hey hey hey -- Hey hey -- Jesus was God in the flesh.
Number Seven
[intoned] Looking for millionaire wife. Good looking, Very handsome, Intelligent, Good bull thrower, Etcetera. You lucky women! All you have to do is find me, you lucky women. Name's George.
[sung] All you have to do is find me -- You lucky women -- Name's George.
Number Eight
[spoken] Here's wishing all who read this, if they can get a lift, and the best of luck to you. Why in hell did you come, anyway?
[sung] Damn it anyhow -- Here I am stuck in the cold -- I've come, twenty-seven hundred miles from Chi, Illinois -- Slept along the highway, slept in open boxcar without top. Went hungry for two days (raining too) -- Dah dah dah dah -
But they say there's a hell -- What the hell do they think this is? Do they think about this? Dah dah dah dah dah
(and etc: more Dah-dahs here...)
I'm on my way, one half of desert to the east. Then back to El-lay, to try once more -- Car just passed by, make that two more, three more. Do not think they'll let me finish my story.
Here she comes, a truck, not a fuck, but a truck. Just a truck. Hoping to get the hell out, here's my name-- Johnnie Reinwald, nine-fifteen South Westlake Avenue, Los Angeles. Doh dee-dee
(and etc: more Doh-dees here...)
Here's wishing all who read this, if they can get a lift, and the best of luck to you - Doh doh doh doh doh doh -- dah dah dah -
Why in hell did you come, anyway?
Partch is the prototypical American outsider. Born in Oakland in 1901, Partch was the son of a missionary couple who had fled the Boxer Rebellion. As a child he became fascinated with the subtle intonations of the human voice and adapted a viola to reproduce them. As a young man he obtained a grant to study tuning systems, travelling to Dublin to obtain Yeats permission for a proposed opera based on Yeats translation of Oedipus. Although Yeats was impressed, Partch's money ran out and he was forced to return to the US in the middle of the Depression.Partch lived as a hobo, riding trains and taking odd jobs to support his continuing obsession with microtonal pitches and the human voice. He gradually developed a set of instruments tuned in accordance with Ptolemy's 11-limit (43-tone) just intonation, and acquired a group of acolytes he trained to play these instruments. For more information about Harry Partch, click here.
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