It was EDSBS that turned me on to Stewart, so HT to them. And I don't plan on rebroadcasting coach tweets here.
But as it happens, this particular entry - besides being gloriously un-coachlike - reminds me a few weeks ago when M and I heard Crystal Blue Persuasion in the car and both immediatly assumed that it was a drug song. And if you listen to it - drippy 70s keyboard, horn-infused 3-part psychedleic vocals, Willy-Wonka tripout lyrics - I stand by that assumption. Coming from the same time, meter and culture of 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,' how could it not be?
And, obvioulsy, "Crystal" is today (though perhaps wasn't when this song was written) the go-to euphamism for Meth. Everyone knows, that, right?
Well, according to enough Tube sources that I have to believe there's something to it, Crystal Blue is about any of that:
From Wiki (which echoes other sources):
The title of the song came to James while he was reading The Bible's Book of Revelation, according to James in a 1985 interview in Hitch magazine:
I took the title from the Book of Revelations[sic] in the Bible, reading about the New Jerusalem. The words jumped out at me, and they're not together; they're spread out over three or four verses. But it seemed to go together, it's my favorite of all my songs and one of our most requested.[1]
However, according to James's manager, James was actually inspired by his reading of the Book of Ezekiel where it speaks of the Blue Shekinah Light which represented the presence of the Almighty God and the Books of Isaiah and Revelation where it speaks of a bright future of a brotherhood of mankind living in peace and harmony.[2]
Blue Shekina Light?
So let's return to Coach Stewart's twitter.
At this year's Mieneke Bowl, after a breathless, vampire-battle of a win over UNC, Coach Stewart took to an ESPN microphone and basicly became a Joy Balloon that someone suddenly stopped pinching the end of. Screaming into Rob Stone's microphone he said:
On Pat White: "Every mom and daddy in the country want their son to be like Pat White. My wife and I want our sons to be like Pat White."
"Our kids may not be the best players, I know that, but they're the best citizens, they're going to be great husbands, great daddys, great men of faith, I bygawd guarantee that!"
(and then, he turns to Rob Stone):
"Thank you Rob Stone for all you do, thank you ESPN, we love you, ESPN made us, any night you need us, you just ask!"
So that's Bill Stewart, and God Bless. And if nothing else, his twitter feeds reinforces the all-heart, country-roads-take-me-persona he let loose on Stone.
So now we're back to 4am in Stewart's car on the way to practice. What did he hear in that song - and know about it - that makes for "Crystal practice?"
Did he think it was Meth? Amphetimines? Alice? Blue Moons? Hillbilly Heroine? WMD? I mean, this IS West Virgina? Was he planning on a practice, at 6am in the mountains of WV in March, that was akin to really good drug use?
Or.
Did he know all or some of the above, and wanted his team to play like the leviathon of Revelations, beaming with Blue Shenika Light?
Or was he just groovin' on Tommy and the Shondells and accidently skimmed across the top of it all with a twitter post?
Probably that last one. But how is that song not about drugs?
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