999,803: George Jones - I'm a People

Of all the no-brainer top-tier most important country artists of all time, George Jones gets the smallest amount of love from non-country fans. Everyone knows Hank Williams, both Jr. and Sr. (I’ll let you guess who gets more respect). Rock fans know Johnny Cash for his brooding “Man in Black” image. All potheads know Willie Nelson. Merle Haggard has a far more memorable name. ‘80s TV fans know Waylon Jennings via The Dukes of Hazzard, and perhaps the somewhat less remembered Buck Owens from his time on Hee Haw. But George Jones? Generic name, no great outside claim to fame, no link to any hip modern subcultures, not known for writing his own material. Meh, no matter, he’s just the greatest pure singer in country history.

When he wasn’t recording the saddest country ballads of all time (Exhibit A: “He Stopped Loving Her Today”) or drunk-driving his riding lawnmower into town to pick up more vodka, Jones lightened the mood of his records (not to mention the alcoholic haze of his life) with a lot of wacky novelty songs. Perhaps the least comprehensible of these is the title track of his 1966 Musicor album I’m a People. “I’m a People” was penned by Dallas Frazier, the songwriter also responsible for the Hollywood Argyles’ comic-book caveman ode “Alley Oop,” the Oak Ridge Boys’ deathless “Elvira,” and, oddly, the sweeping ballad “There Goes My Everything,” recorded by the likes of Engelbert Humperdinck and Fat Elvis.

It’s a challenge just to figure out what the subject of “I’m a People” is, not least because Jones really plays up the country twang in his vocal reading. If you can understand everything he’s saying in the verses without the aid of a lyric sheet, you can probably also understand what Boomhower is saying on King of the Hill. But once you’ve got that figured out, the song still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Basically, Jones spends the verses bitching about how he’s not a monkey, then spends the chorus giving an overlong spelling lesson about how to assemble the word “people,” taking extra time to describe some of the letters in case folks might not recognize them (you need a “big skinny L,” for example).

The chorus being the focal point of every conventionally structured song, it’s hard to imagine “I’m a People” ever becoming anyone’s favorite sing-along. But it gets even weirder when you try to understand just what the verses are on about. Jones starts the song fantasizing about being a monkey, and in the second set of couplets, it isn’t clear whether he’s still imagining his workday as a monkey or whether he’s grinning and humming and taking cash as a human shopkeeper, or whatever profession he’s engaged in. After the first chorus, Jones complains that monkeys don’t have to go downtown and ask for jobs and get turned down. All right, we’ve all been there, but then Jones flies into a sudden and violent fit of self-loathing, turning his rage inward and threatening to smash himself. By the last verse, the narrator has skipped out on what scant responsibilities he’s still entrusted with in real life to go to the zoo, where you’ll find him “diggin’ on you know who.” From this coy hint, we can only assume that Jones is standing outside the monkey cages, likely with a look on his face recalling Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket.

So to recap the narrator’s mental state: 1) blurred lines between real and fantasy selves; 2) emotionally unstable and prone to violent impulses; 3) unable to contribute to society; 4) obsessively repeats to himself the spelling of one particular word while identifying himself as a “creature”; 5) apparently stalking a monkey at the zoo. And thus we arrive at the true meaning of “I’m a People”: a harrowing portrait of a working-class breakdown into serious mental illness, no doubt precipitated and exacerbated by oppressive economic conditions. Wall Street, take note what you have wrought upon America!