The phrase “cowboy mouth” first appeared in the Bob Dylan song, “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” (Wilcox, p. 103) The sad-eyed lady with the cowboy mouth is assumed to be Joan Baez, who in turn sang of Dylan, “Singer or Saviour, it was his to choose.” (Ibid) In this, we see Shepard and Smith both quoting from and attempting to elevate themselves to the level of their generation’s mythic artists, both in their highly visible affair at the legendary Chelsea and in their apparently boldly autobiographic enactment of that affair on the stage of the American Place Theatre.
I walked in the set of Cowboy Mouth in Ruskin Theatre last Saturday. The stage, well, you don’t know which part was the stage, was full of rags and clothes, shoes, beer bottles, tires and hubcaps and unidentifiable objects. A band was playing. A girl in black was dancing and seducing every man coming in. I walked in without even knowing the name of the play.
I went to restroom before the play started. The girl in black went too. She looked at the mirror in the restroom and said “The situation sucks!”. I didn’t respond, wondering if it was supposed to be a conversation at all. Then by the time I walked back, she was on the stage, in the middle of a montage. It was her and a guy, also in black, teasing, mingling and dancing. The play then began. It was like watching two beasts trapped in a cage. They desperately want to get out, yet desperately love the comfort of the entrapment. They were obsessed with each other, body and mind, yet they could sink the teeth into the other’s throat any second. At times, they emerged from the dark, broke out of their tarnished body, told us stories with their bright eyes. But always, one would smash the story and the dream along.
I had a hard time understanding the words because of the heavy Texas accent, but the raw demonstration carved itself in my mind. It was not so much about the story or the words, but the moves and the raw voices coming out the ambivalent souls that trapped me on my seat, hypnotized me.
If there is a door between the civil society and the savage jungle, this must be what you see when you walk into that side. Eyes wide shut.
I wanted to to know the words and find out what kind of words originated such a vivid imagery of the human beasts. The play was Cowboy Mouth, by Sam Shepard. I read the play. I read about Sam Shepard and Patti Smith. Wow.
Entrapment, freedom, obssion, sex, cannibal, death, nirvana, …. DREAM and SALVATION
At the end of the play, Cavale says,
People want a street angel. They want a saint but with a cowboy mouth. Somebody to get off on when they can’t get off on themselves. I think that’s what Mick Jagger is trying to do…what Bob Dylan seemed to be for a while. A sort of god in our image.” … “Any great motherfucker rock-‘n’-roll song can raise me higher than all of Revelations. We created rock-‘n’-roll in from our image, it’s our child…a child that’s gotta burst in the mouth of a saviour.”