Till I Gain Control Again

I've liked this song quite a while but not as long as it's been around. "Till I Gain Control Again" was written by Rodney Crowell and was first recorded by Emmylou Harris in the '70s. Somehow I missed Emmylou's version. Crystal Gayle had a hit with it in the '80s and I did hear her do it on the radio several times. Van Morrison put it on his country album "Pay the Devil" in 2006 which is in my collection. I think I just about wore Joyce out with replays of it as we drove to TX right after I bought the CD. When Morrison sings "Till I Gain Control Again" he really hangs it out there; it's an emotionally raw and moving performance of an amazing song. It also features a rather slight but strange change in the lyrics which IMHO doesn't make a lot of sense.

If you'll look at the lyrics below, you'll see that it's the woman Crowell compares the lighthouse to, not the narrator. "Like a lighthouse you must stand alone." This makes sense because as the last lines indicate the narrator is out on the road roaming around and sailing on different seas. He can't be the fixed, stable lighthouse too. That's what he says the woman is.

I know singers change lyrics all the time. But sometimes, as in this case, it's almost laughable because the narrator is twisted into two different roles. It's like..."O man, I'm out taking all those different roads and sailin' all those different and now I'm coming back to my stable lighthouse you and, no wait, that's me there as that lighthouse. Man I must be stoned."

In a famous sophomore literature text of the '50s, '60s, and '70s, scholars Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren have an introduction to poetry essay that explains why Joyce Kilmer's popular poem "Trees" is really a disaster. What they point out is that the writer has mixed up his metaphors/similes so much that it's laughable. In "Till I Gain Control Again" Crowell the writer doesn't do that. His figures of speech are consistent. It's the singers who've messed them up.

Okay, I still like the song a lot, even when a singer makes that error with the lyrics. So, let's hear it. I'm using Raul Malo's version. IMHO it's even better than Morrison's. Malo's is similar in style to the Morrison take on the song and uses the same change in the lyrics.

Just like the sun over the mountain top 

You know i'll always come again 
You know i love to spend my morning time 
Like sunlight dancing on your skin 
I've never gone so wrong as to telling lies to you 
What you've seen is what I've been 
There is nothing I could hide from you 
You see me better than I can 
Out on the road that lies before me now 
There are some turns where I will spin 
I only hope that you can hold me now 
Till i can gain control again 

Like a lighthouse you must stand alone 
Landmark the sailor's journeys end 
No matter what sea I've have been sailing on 
I'll always roll this way again 
Out on the road that lies before me now 
There are some turns where I will spin 
I only hope that you can hold me now 
Till i can gain control again