“Mexico”

Jennie and I were returning to Lexington last Sunday from our monthly pilgrimage to Manchester where I’ve been filling in once a month at St. Paul AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church. Somewhere between the Berea and London exits of I-75, we heard the opening chords of James Taylor’s 1975 Billboard Hot 100 hit Mexico on the radio. 

Sweet Baby James’ signature smooth vocal is made even sweeter by Graham Nash and David Crosby’s backing harmonies. His easy-on-the-ear acoustic guitar is accompanied by a Latin-infused beat – conga, vibraphone, and steel drums.

The lyrics lead the listener to believe he is singing from personal experience about a holiday weekend south of the border replete with R&R…&R – Rest and Relaxation on a lazy, sun-soaked beach seasoned with a little Romance:

Way down here, you need a reason to move
Feel a fool, running your stateside games
Lose your load, leave your mind behind, Baby James 

Americano got the sleepy eye
But his body's still shaking like a live wire
Sleepy Señorita with the eyes on fire 

Oh, Mexico
It sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low
The moon's so bright like to light up the night
Make everything all right

The fifty-year-old song still evokes a smile. But what adds to the delight of the music is the playful twist in the last lines when the balladeer admits he’s never been to Mexico. He’s making it all up.

Oh, down in Mexico
I never really been so I don't really know

Oh, Mexico
I guess I'll have to go

Oh, Mexico
I never really been but I'd sure like to go

Sing o-o-oh, Mexico
I guess I'll have to go now

Jennie and I complement each other when it comes to listening to music. She pays no attention whatsoever to lyrics, would be hard pressed to sing along to anything without a copy of the words in front of her. But play her a song – any song – and she can hum it back to you note by note on pitch and in rhythm. Ask her to repeat it hours later and she’ll do it. 

Me, on the other hand – I’m a lyric guy. As for me replicating the music: Fuhgeddaboudit. Jennie to David, eyes wincing when I occasionally try to sing something during a sermon: “Do you have any idea how you pitched that? Way up there. And how many times have I told you, Do not clap to the music. You’re always on the wrong beat.”) She’s right about my cluelessness with notes and the beat. But lover of words that I am, I do have an ear and appreciation for lyrics. I’m not as good as my buddy Matt Mullin who, duly prompted, can sing from memory (about as well as I can) nearly all the verses, chorus, and bridge of any song from our college years (much better than I can). But I can hold my own and can sing along when such as Mexico comes on the radio. With me singing the lyrics and Jennie humming the melody and even the harmonies, we two are a veritable jukebox (When’s the last time you saw one of those?).   

So it was that when the familiar bright finger-picked guitar notes and slap of the conga came on the radio last Sunday, Jennie tapped her feet and hummed the music while I smiled at the lyrics, anticipating the sly twist at the end – JT waxing eloquently about a place he’s never been.

Jennie and I have been to Mexico, though, and it is our experiences there that make us smile when we hear the song. For most of the twelve years we served Coolwater Christian Church in Arizona, we went down to Mexico. Not for R&R&R, but for C&C&C&C&C: Coolwater Christian Church Construction Crew. Early on in starting that new church, our fledgling congregation adopted the Lenten practice of giving up five days over President’s Day weekend, taking up $10,000 – a tithe of our little church’s budget – and taking up tools and tool belts and sleeping bags and caravaning to Mexico where we’d build a house for a family in Puerto Peñasco, aka Rocky Point, on the Sea of Cortez. On the scale of sacrificial service it was certainly no cross to bear, but it did call forth inspiration and perspiration, not to mention sore backs and muscles from the manual labor required. No power tools were permitted.     

It was an intergenerational mission trip. Children as well as youth and college students came along. I remember their comments: 

“Pastor David, I was so tired at night.

“I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed.”

“I had to take a cold shower…every morning!”

“There wasn’t any electricity. We had to use hand tools. And the wood was wet.  Have you ever tried to cut wet wood with a hand saw? I got a blister. And how many wheelbarrows full of concrete did we have to haul to pour that foundation? Hundreds!”

Add to the above hardships (I jest) the uncomfortable fact that despite our warnings not to drink the water, someone on our team would inevitably come to the breakfast table on Day Two bemoaning a visitation of Montezuma’s revenge.    

After listening to the annual recitation of moans and groans from the rising generation of our construction crew, I would say, “Miserable week, huh?” 

“No,” they responded. “We loved it! Can’t wait to go back next year.”

At the end of our first day one year, Jennie was cleaning up. The cement had been mixed and poured for the foundation by hand…all forty or so wheelbarrows full (not hundreds). Five walls had been framed, hand sawed, and nailed from wet wood with three walls to go. Jennie spotted a group of neighborhood women talking to Maria, the woman whose house we were building. One of the women had a child with her, a little boy who appeared to be three, maybe four years old. Jennie asked in broken Spanish the name of the little boy. 

“Hay-sus (Jesus),” the mother answered. 

The next day, a neighbor boy named Alejandro, age 13, who had befriended our crew, showed up with his little brother, aged five. 

Jennie asked, “What’s your brother’s name, Alejandro?” 

“An-hell (Angel).”  

I said to Jennie, “What do you know? Spend five days in Lent pouring yourself out body, mind, spirit, and pocketbook and you find yourself in the presence of Mary, Jesus, and Angel.” 

One of the first years we went to Puerto Peñasco, our son Will, in addition to serving as a construction foreman, served as videographer. When he returned, he produced a movie about the weekend. We advertised its “world premier” for a couple weeks and debuted it at The Buffalo Chip Saloon and Steakhouse up in Cave Creek, the self-anointed “West’s Most Western Town.” We hung a makeshift bedsheet screen out back of the Buffalo Chip near the horseshoe pit and fire circle, ran an extension cord to a projector, fired up our portable sound system, and with several dozen Coolwater Christian Church Construction Crew folks and congregation slouched in folding chairs, Will screened the film. 

The background music in the soundtrack? You guessed it: James Taylor’s Mexico.

So it is that what evokes smiles from Jennie and me whenever we hear that tune like we did last Sunday is not the melody, the harmonies, the lyrics, or even the plot twist at the end, it’s the memory of weekends spent with people dear to our memory investing ourselves in doing something for others, Jesus, Mary, and Angel included.           

Cue the music:           

O-o-oh, Mexico

I guess I'll have to go now