Time of the preacher song


The song by Willie Nelson and Jhonny Cash is sung by Craven and Darius Jedburgh when they meet, and when they "depart"

I checked up the song and text after i watched the series, and i feel it bears a resemblance of the story.
They choose 2 different ways of dealing with the situation they are in. Darius Jedburgh goes killing and Craven forgave Hi's daughter and went quietly...Or so i like to believe.
(He did shout out her name not so peacefully at the very end, so just when we think its all over, its just begun?)

It was the time of the preacher
When the story began
Of the choice of a lady
And the love of a man

And how he loved her so dearly
He went out of his mind
When she left him for someone
She'd left behind

He cried like a baby
He screamed like a panther
In the middle of the night
And he saddled his pony
And he went for a ride

It was the time of the preacher
In the year of '01
Now the preaching is over
And the lesson's begun

But he could not forgive her
Though he tried and he tried and he tried
And the halls of his memory
Still echo her lies

He cried like a baby
He screamed like a panther
In the middle of the night
And he saddled his pony
And he went for a ride

It was the time of the preacher
In the year of '01
Now the lesson
is over
And the killing's begun

It was the time of the preacher
In the year of '01
When you think it's all over
It's only begun

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There's a touch of Apocalypse and Millenialism about it, as well, with the mention of "the year of '01" (2001?) and the possibility that the Cold War hasn't really gone away during the 1980s, but is merely sleeping.

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It's from Willie Nelson's concept album Red Headed Stranger. The song is about a man who kills his unfaithful wife and goes on the run from the law.

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[deleted]

The Cold War was at it's peak in the Eighties - Reagan's nuclear build-up and Thatcher's destruction of the miners as a political force, accusing the union leaders of being in hock to the Soviets, so as to secure the mines for future nuclear dumping and the building of shelters for the elite. Jedburg even gets rotated through El Salvador - the biggest proxy war of the time.

And then, in 01, when we thought it was all over, it had only just begun. 9/11, I mean. We're in the time of the preacher now, and the killing's begun.

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There's a touch of Apocalypse and Millenialism about it, as well, with the mention of "the year of '01"
"Year one" has revolutionary implications, which could be one of the reasons the daughter was drawn to the song.

"Year one" is where you start counting "the new history" after a successful revolution. See its use during the French Revolution and by many revolutionaries, anarchists, and terrorists since.

Perhaps people closer to the era of IRA bombings, the Red Brigades, and Baader-Meinhof Group would have recognized the reference more easily than audiences now.




last 2 dvds: Densha otoko/Train Man (2005) & 35 rhums (2008)

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