So the other night, when I was reading Light of the World by James Lee Burke (which by the way I finished yesterday so I will be writing about it shortly) I started thinking about the character of Clete Purcel and specifically a song that would fit the character. Now, if you read Burke’s Dave Robicheaux series you know that Clete is Dave’s best friend and right hand man. They were partner in the Homicide Division of the New Orleans Police Department until their self-destructive tendencies got them kicked off the force. Through twenty books by Burke – Clete and Dave have fought the bad guys that live on the underside of New Orleans, New Iberia and in the case of “Light of the World” Montana. Throughout those books, if there is a wrong decision to be made Clete made it, if Clete knew he was going too far with a suspect or a bad guy that he was beating the crap out of and he knew he should stop Clete kept gong! So for me the song that best fits Cletus Is- “It Ain’t Easy Being Me” by Chris Knight!!
There used to be a great video of the song that’s not on YouTube anymore and as I watched the live performances by Chris there I didn’t see any where his vocals are really clear. There were a couple that were cool because the audience singing along is almost as loud as Chris. So I finally have settled on Blake Shelton’s cover of the song. He does a good job with the song and the video has the lyrics!
So let’s go “into the night” with Blake, singing Chris Knight’s “It Ain’t Easy Being Me” thinking about Clete Purcel and not Edward whose wife thinks that the song is about him!!
