An Early Jeff Tweedy Masterpiece: Uncle Tupelo - “New Madrid”

I once feigned sick to get out of going to school in fear of the Mayan apocalypse. For those unaware, the Mayan calendar consisted of a cycle that was 5,126 years long, with a hard stop on December 21, 2012. So like anyone, I got way too worked up about it and stayed home from school in fear. Except, I stayed home from school in 2008, the prediction alone enough to incapacitate a 12-year-old me. Jeff Tweedy went the other route in writing “New Madrid”. When Iben Browning predicted that a major earthquake would occur on the New Madrid fault in December 1990, the song’s narrator celebrated life, arm in arm with a young love, ready for it all to cease as soon as the ground started shaking. In a way, it’s heartwarming, love so strong that not even death could come between them, but, was death really so certain? If we’re assuming that the narrator strongly believed the prediction, why not take preventative measures? Shelter, or, at the most extreme, drive 3-4 hours out of the danger zone. There’s a deep sadness in being completely satisfied with a life not long-lived. In the spirit of other Uncle Tupelo songs, the New Madrid earthquake would have provided a swift exit from a depressing rust belt existence. In the spirit of the actual rust belt, however, no such relief would come. Seven months after his prediction failed to come to fruition, Iben Browning passed away at 71 years old, forever immortalized in the moment of mass hysteria when middle America collectively held their breath.