During junior high school in Arkansas, I was required by law or tradition to take two years of square-dancing lessons as part of our physical education curriculum.
We were assigned a partner to dance with for the entire school year. The first year, my partner was pregnant. This was not entirely unusual.
As a result of my dancing education, I still know a lot of reels, which were the string-band tunes we danced to while Ms. Griffin – always in a blue track suit – called out the moves.
Here ends the backstory.
Two weeks ago, I was listening to the radio in my truck when one of these deeply ingrained tunes came on the radio. It was one of my favorites reels, but I had no idea what the name of the tune was. I grabbed my phone and looked at its screen.
It read: “John Brown’s Dream.”
Sometimes simply knowing the name of something can kick you in the gut, and my mind swirled as the tune finished playing through my truck’s speakers.
My first thought was that the John Brown in the tune must have been the famous abolitionist, who was executed in 1859 for his role in a raid on a federal armory in Virginia – an attempt to arm enslaved people and start a revolt.
What was that John Brown’s dream? He thought everyone was equal, and that slavery needed to be abolished, with violence if necessary.
That, I thought, is a weird idea to square dance to.
Of course, the evocative title of the song “John Brown’s Dream” also made me think of Welsh chairmaker John Brown, whose chairs made me the woodworker and person I am today. Chairmaker John Brown wasn’t born with that name, however. He assumed the name John Brown later in life and insisted people call him by the full name – not “John” or “Mr. Brown” – but “John Brown” or “JB” for short.
Did chairmaker John Brown take that name because of the abolitionist John Brown? (Both men were radical thinkers, but this seems very unlikely to me.) Or did he take that particular name because of one of the other famous John Browns out there?
There are a lot of them.
Well shit. I’ve never been a big fan of naming things. You can take a beautiful fiddle tune and put a name on it – like “Bonaparte’s Retreat” – and it becomes something else entirely, festooned with cultural and historical meaning that can enhance or detract from the music itself.
This is why I think it’s silly to name pieces of furniture. I mean, it’s a bookcase, not an allegory for the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Guatemalan government in 1954. I say let your work enter the world empty of intellectual baggage. Instead, allow the piece’s name to emerge through use – Uncle Ron’s chair, Baba’s table, Grandad’s desk. To me, those earned names are real.
Plus, given enough scrutiny, given names can be grasps at emptiness.
Take the song “John Brown’s Dream.” Author Tommy Jarrell found that the song derived from an earlier tune called “Herv Brown’s Dream,” and that it went by other names that implied it was a song about drinking, such as “Brownstream” and “Stillhouse Branch” and “Jimmy Johnson Pass that Jug Around the Hill.”
The song probably had nothing to do with the famous abolitionist when it first emerged in Virginia.
And what about chairmaker John Brown? Why did he take this name?
I asked David and Annie Sears this question. Annie used to be married to John Brown, and David was his nephew. Their answer?
“I think JB chose this name because it was the most generic name he could think of, affording what he thought was maximum anonymity. He did use Virgil as a middle name for a while which I think would have blown his cover! I don’t think he named himself after anyone in particular.”
Or to quote the great philosopher Butch in the movie “Pulp Fiction:”
“I’m American, honey. Our names don’t mean shit.”
P.S. If you want to hear my favorite rendition of “John Brown’s Dream,” I highly recommend this version by Nora Brown. The song “John Brown’s Dream” begins at the 5:00 mark.
I feel the same way about naming people and other animals, such as pets. Names should be revealed, not forced.
I still play that Nora Brown 10” record to everyone who comes to the house.