I Talk To the Trees

"Paint Your Wagon" is long forgotten, and so many of the elements would be considered uh, problematic now that it will not likely be revived in any serious production. It would be fun to see someone try.  There was apparently a movie with Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood in it in the era when I was dating and last going to movies, and I will not bore you with the story of why that particular girlfriend could not go to movies...yes, well, I don't recall it, and unlike today, if you missed a movie when it came out in the theaters for 2-8 weeks, you never saw it again. 

But the play kept showing up in summer stock from the 50s to the early 80s, likely because the lust in it bubbles constantly just below the surface - including one character's teenage daughter, the only woman in a mining town, who he sends Back East for her protection - and a Mormon with two wives who the miners covet. It was an era in which you could suggest lust at roaring levels throughout a play but had to be careful how you said it. A folksinger friend who worked summer theater expressed surprise that "They Call the Wind Maria" came from the show. He had thought it was an older folk song.  Maria is the song I was originally looking for for this post, but I came across this when I went down that rabbit hole of 16,821 folksingers who covered it back in the day.

I always liked this one. It holds (ahem) special meaning for me as the person who walks in the woods and does talk among the trees and the breeze, though not to them. An important distinction as Tommy illustrates.

In their live show, Tommy later came back to this with a quick reference highly reminiscent of his little rant here, variously with such comments like "So whaddya think about that, tree?" or "Well at least I never talked to any trees."