I Want To Sleep With Emmylou Harris

I don’t literally want to sleep with Emmylou Harris. Emmylou is a metaphor the more innocent world of the early 1970s where people felt they could change things for the better. So wanting to sleep with Metaphor Emmylou is a way of saying that I feel powerless to do anything about global capitalism, climate change, poverty and world hunger and I want to go back in time. It might also be a sign of my own middle age that I choose to fantasise about women in their mid-60s. Or am I fantasising about sleeping with the younger version, in which case I’d be around seven or eight and a bit too young for her? I haven’t really thought this through properly, have I?

Maybe it’s much more simple – it’s part of my yearning for the parallel universe where I am a country musician touring the USA with my guitar by my side, living on cold beer and warm dreams.

This is a reworked acrylic paint version of an illustration I did for one of my poems, which was called ‘I Want to Sleep With Emmylou Harris’ (which were originally lyrics for a song by my band The Urban Country Project).

I Want to Sleep With Emmylou Harris.
I want to hold her tight in my arms.
I want to play with the tassels on her jacket.
I want to go to libraries with her and discuss the effect of the depression on mid-western farms.

Oh Emmylou, how I would love to visit you
To be in a band together would be so cool
Unfortunately I have to pick the kids up from school.

2013 © Tim Bradford