Rain In My Shoes
I’ve always loved this song. It is one of Elvis signature tunes, but the credit for the superlative lyric go to Ronnie Milsap and Eddie Rabbitt. The lyric knits together time and place by means of a consuming quest for a person who is loved. Each of us is a mystery to ourselves, our motivations for feeling and decision are poorly understood, if at all. How greater the “unknowing” of a lover whose one purpose is to fulfill the relationship–yet is prevented by the opacity of another mind and heart.
So Elvis walks with resolve down a country road, from town to town searching for her. Seven days, and a dozen towns, on he goes in the rain. No matter, he is Odysseus willing to pay whatever the price to find his love. He is like the hedgehog who knows only one thing: he has loved her too much and too long and he must bring her home.
He encounters two townspeople in his quest. The old man, one who has lived for many years and represents the memory, the valuable inheritance, of what matters to his community. Memory is not enough, for it is not sufficiently clear to provide reliable direction.
“Yes, she’s been here. But no wait, was it yesterday or the day before?”
The preacher-man is the community mystic, the bearer of wisdom, an oracle of sorts. He is the one who interrogates the searcher. “Where are you bound on such a cold dark afternoon?” The preacher is the voice of god, the One-Who-Listens.
The last two lines of the lyric are perfect, a gift intended for you and I who listen to the story.
And he left me with a prayer
That I’d find you
