Since I offered up an extraordinarily happy song last time, Paul Simon’s irrepressible Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, it became necessary to restore balance to the Cosmos, and there are few songs occupying the other end of the emotional spectrum that are anywhere near so genuine, and moving in their sadness, as today’s selection.
Tank Park Salute is about losing a loved one when you’re far too young to be prepared for it, in this case a father. It’s always been my impression that he was killed in a war, I suppose because of the title, but apparently that’s not the case; when Billy was just 18, his dad died of lung cancer, and the song is about Bragg’s own struggle, still ongoing, to grapple with the loss.
The narrative structure of Tank Park Salute is both clever and moving, as Billy relates his feelings from three different perspectives, all his, but from where he stood at different stages of his life. First he relives the emotions of feeling safe and loved when he was just a little boy, his dad tucking him in to bed, and leaving the light on at the top of the stairs to fend off his childish fear of the dark. Then he adopts the perspective of his teenaged self, when his father’s death robbed him of that warm, secure feeling, as if that comforting nightlight had gone out, and wouldn’t ever shine again; now it’s dark at the top of those stairs (a metaphor I’m sure needs no explaining). Finally, he’s in the present, and after all the years that have passed, and all he’s been through, he still can’t come to terms with the permanence of a loved one’s passing, or the certainty that one day, sooner or later, his own time will come. Daddy is it true that we all have to die? he sings, perhaps remembering a time when he posed that question as a kid, or perhaps posing it now.
Why is it a “tank park salute” that he offers in tribute? It turns out that while Billy’s father didn’t die in a war, he did fight in one, and served as a tank crewman in World War II. I’ve always imagined that Billy was moved upon visiting a memorial of a sort that you see in most of the countries that fought on the Allied side during the war, featuring a tank mounted on a plinth. Or maybe Billy was visiting a museum – pretty much the best tank collection in the world can be found at Bovington, a literal tank park located in Dorset. Maybe Billy paid a visit to see an example of the tank his father used to drive? In any case, a smart military salute is a gesture that his dad would have greatly appreciated. I’m reminded of that famous shot from JFK’s funeral procession, in which little John-John was captured at the moment he saluted his father’s casket as it rolled by on its gun carriage.
Perhaps death and dying is something that can never be fully comprehended, no matter how many years you’ve had to think about it, years that keep scrolling by without conferring any special insight, while pushing you ever closer to the time when it’s your turn. You might not understand it, but you know it’s coming, and honestly, it’s not easy keeping a truth like that at the back of your mind. As Billy puts it, in hauntingly poetic fashion:
Like a pale moon in a sunny sky
Death gazes down as I pass by
To remind me that I’m but my father’s son
Post-script: A reader informed me (see comments) that Billy was himself in a Brritsh Army tank regiment, albeit only briefly; he “signed himself out” at the end of basic training, having learned how to crew the mighty Chieftan tank. It turns out my intuition about Bovington was correct – this is Billy:
“I felt I finally had something to measure myself against my dad. He enjoyed the armed forces and was good at it and so was I. Fathers are difficult creatures and when they’re not around, it’s even harder. But I could now say: “Look what I’ve done, Dad. I’m not a total time-waster.” So my time in the army made me feel closer to him. For a long time, I didn’t think about or talk about him to anyone, but now I find myself on a rainy day in Dorset at Bovington Tank Museum with my little boy showing him the model his grandfather drove and the Chieftain I was training to drive.”
the needlefish 
Great post.
I’ve always imagined Tank Park Salute to be a reference to the famous picture of a man standing defiantly in front of the advancing army tanks in Tiananmen Square.
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if it’s helpful. Billy was himself a soldier in the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment. The ‘Tank Park’ is literally the sheds that the tanks are parked in. A ‘tank park salute’ is a general collective informal show of respect.
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Thanks. I’ll have to incorporate this info into the post!
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