We live
in
through
and by
our stories do we not?

Who could I possibly be apart from the stories that I tell myself? What could I become unless my imagination is sparked by the stories which you have told me? The ultimate form of human association is marked by vulnerability, – such that I feel sufficiently secure/free to speak with you, and especially, to listen to what you have to say? Let’s just call that friendship.

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This tune has been offered thousands of times across the airwaves. Without doubt I have listened to a few hundred of those radio presentations of China Grove by the Doobie Brothers.

The lyricized story gives me hope.

If in Texas, one of the quintessential ‘hard-Right’ states,
“Don’t mess with Texas,”
a nondescript town is described,
a people taking pride in their ordinariness,
with a paradoxical, whacky embrace of “the new,” of foreign difference
–- there’s a chance we will not circle the bowl of raw violence,
due to the dark antipathy of the “Right” for the so-called-Left.

China Grove is an ordinary town, not unlike Batavia, or Geneva or St. Charles. There’s gossip flyin’, the teacher and the preacher and the insane.

But every day there’s a new thing comin’
The ways of an oriental view
The sheriff and his buddies
With their samurai swords
You can even hear the music at night

And though it’s a part of the Lone Star State
People don’t seem to care
They just keep on lookin’ to the East

Talkin’ ’bout the China Grove

China Grove

By The Doobie Brothers

When the sun comes up on a sleepy little town
Down around San Antone
And the folks are risin’ for another day
‘Round about their homes
The people of the town are strange
And they’re proud of where they came
Well, you’re talkin’ ’bout China Grove
Oh, China Grove

Well, the preacher and the teacher
Lord, they’re a caution
They are the talk of the town
When the gossip gets to flyin’
And they ain’t lyin’
When the sun goes fallin’ down

They say that the father’s insane
And dear Missus Perkin’s a game
We’re talkin’ ’bout the China Grove
Oh, China Grove

But every day there’s a new thing comin’
The ways of an oriental view
The sheriff and his buddies
With their samurai swords
You can even hear the music at night

And though it’s a part of the Lone Star State
People don’t seem to care
They just keep on lookin’ to the East

Talkin’ ’bout the China Grove
Oh, China Grove

Lyrics by Tom Johnston

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The song is based on a real small town in Texas. Johnston thought he had created a fictional town called “China Grove” near San Antonio and later learned it really exists from his cab driver in Houston. Johnston later explained that the band had been on tour passing through the town of China Grove on the way to or from San Antonio, and he had seen a road sign with the name, but somehow had forgotten about it.