As dive bars go, Cornerstone is a Guinness World Record winner. A dark interior showcases a musty sticky bar crowded by worn stools. On which sit the salt of Jersey - policemen, construction workers, and on a balmy Sunday afternoon, a guy named Cowboy. He looks like a leaner, meaner Kenny Rogers - graying ponytail pulled back from a tanned, craggy face. Loves country music, says he, especially the Man in Black. Fan that I am of Mr. Cash, I'm more in a Marty Robbins mood. So off I shuffle to the state of art jukebox - mystifying in a bar that hands out bags of Wise potato chips for happy hour. The moment the guitar strums the first chords of El Paso I'm transported back to the first time I heard the song.
Out in the West Texas town of El Paso
I fell in love with a Mexican girl
Nighttime would find me in Rosa's cantina
Music would play and Feleena would whirl
The song eclipses all cowboy ballads. Wikipedia has this to say: "Widely considered a genre classic for its gripping narrative, haunting harmonies, and the eloquent Spanish guitar accompaniment that lends the recording a distinctive Tex-Mex feel."
The nobility of the song is slightly marred by my first experience of it. I wish I could say I heard it on a cowboy trail while the cowhands crooned to the setting sun. Or that I actually witnessed Marty performing his remarkable ballad. Alas, it was neither. It came about through the unlikely personage of Steve Martin. In the 70s and 80s, after the world discovered the wild and crazy Mr. Martin, he began testing the boundaries of his talent. Ergo the music video King Tut. The tiny, jewel of a book - Cruel Shoes. And his Saturday night specials. It was on such a special titled Comedy Is Not Pretty that Steve contrived his homage to Robbins via the unlikely conduit of, um, chimps. Yes, chimps. Steve positioned himself as the hero of the song while casting chimps as all other characters, including the black-eyed, lipsticked Feleena. Even the shennagians of the skit could not dwindle the impact of the soaring lyrics or the marvelous Spanish guitar.
As Cowboy said to me after the hero bid Feleena good bye, "now that's a song!"
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