Postal Service. Despite all the technology, and despite the fact that the package is only traveling a few miles, it still wows me that you can put something in a slot one place and within a day or two it arrives exactly where it's supposed to, with nary a problem. I mean, how many times have you had serious problems with the mail? Once, maybe twice in your lifetime? For all the mail you've sent and received? Say what you will about the federal government, but can you imagine the hassles that would ensue if something like the banking industry took over the mails?
Sadly, I can't remember the last time I actually mailed something other than a bill. Multiply me a few million times and I guess it's no wonder we keep hearing about the financial problems of the Postal Service and how it's in danger of going under. What a pity. Is there a greater inexpensive thrill than seeing a letter or package in your mailbox? Is there better nervous excitement than waiting that day or two for something you sent someone to arrive and hear back from that person? I've never been a consistently prolific letter writer in my time, but I've had periods when I sent and received a lot of personal mail. It's a singular sensation that is vastly different from a telephone call (which has pleasures all its own) and one that emails and texts and tweets and such can't even touch.
Now I'm not here to rant about the disappearance of letter writing; times change blah blah blah. But, but. Maybe if we had a national day of letter writing/mailing, people might be reminded of the pleasures once again, and then maybe make the effort a bit more frequently to do so, and then maybe the Postal Service will survive better. And maybe pigs will fly and the Cleveland Browns will make the Super Bowl too. But I'm going to do it, dammit. I promise to mail a letter this Friday, November 18th. I don't know to whom I'll write or what I'll write about, but I'm going to do it because I love the USPS. Join me, won't you?
And while we're on the subject, I'm wondering what are the five most famous letters in rock music. Actually I have wondered for some time because I'm admitting a kind of defeat. I've long wanted to actually write those famous rock letters. It would be a great exercise in imagination and voice. How would the body of Paul's (it is Paul, isn't it, Beatles fanatics?) letter that ends so famously "P.S. I Love You" read? Or what kind of heartfelt sweet things did poor Elvis write in that letter that kept getting returned to sender/him? When you think about it, the words in the Box Tops' "The Letter" must have been pretty hot. I mean to send adolescent Alex Chilton scurrying to an airport because he "ain't got time to take a fast train," and not caring about the cost of it all, phew! All we get of the letter is that "she couldn't live without me." There must be more than that in the missive, no? What? I want to know.
So those three are among the top five most famous letters in rock history, we all can agree, right? The next one on my list is perhaps the most intriguing--the letter that appears at the end of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row." After verses and verses and verses and nine minutes, thirty-four seconds of Bob describing the weird goings on in/on Desolation Row, he pulls back a bit and begins the last verse talking about a letter:
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the doorknob broke)
When you asked me how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name ...
God almighty how much for years I've wanted to write that letter! But how to do it justice? And how to solve its various conundrums (conundra?)? That parenthesis is used in the official Lyrics 1962-2001 book (which is hardly definitive, I know), but even then it still poses the question I've long had--was the letter concerning the time the doorknob broke, or did it arrive around the time Bob's doorknob broke? (Trust me, in the glorious world of Bobarcana, no small point to ponder). And "all these people that you mention"--specific to the letter, or are they the people (rearranged/renamed) Bob has just told us all about? How can one even attempt to write this letter with these questions unanswered? God I love it.
The fifth letter in my all-time Top Five Rock'n'Roll letters (and these are not in any kind of ranked order--I think you can tell what would be my #1) is one you're all probably saying, well of course, get to it, after all it's chronologically the first one your list. Ah, but there's a catch. Is there an actual letter in the Marvelettes' marvelous "Please Mr. Postman"? No, there isn't. She's waiting on/hoping for/begging for a letter from her "boyfriend so far away," but nothing (for all we know he's run off with the girl who keeps sending Elvis's letter back). Now isn't that sad, the poor girl pleading with the postman to look one more time in his bag to see if maybe there's a letter? Just like all of us in these days of no-more-letter-writing. So, do your part--not only for the USPS but for that someone pining near the mailbox. Someday soon write and actually mail a letter to someone. You'll make their day. And maybe inspire another great song--by my reckoning here, there hasn't been a great song about a letter--real or imagined--in nearly 45 years. Name me one.
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