Ronee Blakely: Dues

SONG Dues

WRITTEN BY Ronee Blakely

PERFORMED BY Ronee Blakely

APPEARS ON Ronee Blakely (1972); Nashville: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1975)

When Ronee Blakely's character Barbara Jean sings "Dues," she provides the emotional epicenter of Robert Altman's film Nashville. Barbara Jean's heart-wrenching account of her tortured marriage connects with her fans at the same time that her preoccupied, insensitive husband remains oblivious. Hence the marvelous lines

It's the way that you don't love me
When you say that you do, baby

Better than almost any song I know, "Dues" depicts the anguish of a spouse who wants to leave the marriage almost as much as she wants to "love you the way I used to do." As much as she wants to "walk away from this battleground," what she'd sacrifice for ("I'd give a lot to love you") is to have things the way they were. Whipsawed between wanting to go and needing to stay, she's reduced to the plaintive entreaty of "how long must I pay these dues?" Sacrifice has become unbearable, too.

While consistent with Barbara Jean's character, Blakely's use of the vernacular also enables a universal expression of desperation: Fraught, complex, co-dependent relationships can and do happen to anyone. In that sense, "Dues" reaches out to anyone who knows deep down that their spouse has retreated so deeply into their "own private world" that they are "hidin'" their "blues" and "pretendin' what" they "say," to anyone in that fearsome place where communication is dead but the need to connect with that one person remains.

LYRICS

It's that careless disrespect

I can't take no more, baby

It's the way that you don't love me

When you say that you do, baby

It hurts so bad, it gets me down, down, down

I want to walk away from this battleground

This hurtin' life, it ain't no good

I'd give a lot to love you the way I used to do

Wish I could...

You've got your own private world

I wouldn't have it no other way

But lately you've been hidin' your blues

Pretendin' what you say

It hurts so bad, it gets me down, down, down
I want to walk away from this battleground
This hurtin' life, it ain't no good
I'd give a lot to love you the way I used to do
Wish I could...

Writin' it down kinda makes me feel better

Keeps me away from them blues

I want to be nice to you, treat you right

But how long can I pay these dues?

It hurts so bad, it gets me down, down, down

I want to walk away from this battleground
This hurtin' life, it ain't no good, no
I'd give a lot to love you the way I used to do
Wish I could...

Blakely's stunning performance of "Dues" begins about 2:00 into the video and lasts about 3:15: