I had a period of social-media idling Thursday, waiting for something I needed to post. You go deep enough into Facebook, sooner or later you’ll turn up a pathetic newspaper slapping a pathetic magazine’s even more pathetic story up, then trying to draw eyeballs with a pathetic promo. For this one, the headline:
1975 Soft Rock Hit, One of the Saddest Songs of the ‘70s, Started With a Dream
I will save you a click: It was “Wildfire,” the ludicrously sappy song by Michael Martin Murphey (three names, to distinguish him from all the other Michael Murpheys out there), lampooned by every humorist fond of low-hanging fruit. You know the one:
Written about the ghosts of a woman and her horse, “Wildfire” is often recalled as one of the saddest songs of the ‘70s more than 50 years later.
It was pounded into our brains with a mallet, back in the day when pop radio contained everything from the Allman Brothers to, well, this crap. I can recall parties where someone would start howling SHE RAN CALLING WIIIILLLDFIRE, but as a joke, not a singalong. I think Dave Barry snatched that apple off the tree when he pointed out only one of the ludicrous lyrical howlers:
Oh, they say she died one winter
When there came a killing frost
A killing frost is dangerous to plants, not people, assuming you have the brains and wherewithal to take shelter.
Next lines:
And the pony she named Wildfire
Busted down his stall
In a blizzard, she was lost
Sa…Wildfire broke out of his stable and ran wildly — wildfirely — into the storm? And she took off after him? Maybe this chick is better off dead.
Then I made the mistake of reading the comments, expecting to find my people there. I did…not. I found a score or more of women who are still brought to tears by the tragic story of this stupid goddamn horse, or “get chills” at the hootowl outside MMM’s window for six nights in a row.
I raised my head and concluded: All these women were Trump voters.
Left Facebook for The Detroit News, and was at least entertained to learn that a meth lab was discovered in a Michigan State University building. A classroom building, not a dorm:
MSU police said Wednesday a 31-year-old man was arraigned on felony charges related to operating and maintaining a meth lab and destruction of property.
In a statement, MSU police said they responded to reports of property damage inside Wells Hall on Sunday, April 26, and found Xin Tong with multiple substances that can be purchased legally, including sodium hydroxide pellets, hydrochloric acid, methanol, isopropyl alcohol, acetone and butane, according to a release from the MSU Department of Police and Public Safety. He was charged with trespassing in 54B District Court for an offense listed on Sunday, although MSU police did not mention trespassing in their statement.
… The release does not specify if Tong has any affiliation with the university.
We just concluded a rewatch of “Breaking Bad,” so this was quite top of mind.
I know I spend a lot of time here whining about the weather, but it’s 49 degrees where I sit today, on the last day of April, and I am absolutely NOT happy about it. I hope it’s better where you are. Happy weekend.
ROGirl said on May 1, 2026 at 5:31 am
I remember when someone rigged up grow lights in his dorm room closet for pot plants. That was when Ann Arbor had the $5 pot fine ordinance.
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Deborah said on May 1, 2026 at 6:40 am
We had a meth lab a block over from our condo building in Santa Fe. It was in a trailer on the scariest property, while trailers are forbidden except in specific trailer parks. This particular family or group gets away with everything. They’re the ones now with 14 broken down cars squeezed on to their lot. I’ve been told they’re an old Santa Fe family that goes way back, and way back means the 1600s. Anyway they were forced to get the meth trailer out, we think there had been a fire and it took a crane to remove it. Everyone is terrified of them so none of the neighbors complain. Their junk yard dog seems to be gone, we suspected dog fighting but we’re just glad we don’t have to worry about getting mauled while passing by their backyard fence while walking down our lane.
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Jeff Gill said on May 1, 2026 at 6:55 am
Well, isn’t Trump all about re-shoring American manufacturing? Bring meth labs back from Mexico & China! Those isolated farmsteads and sketchy trailers aren’t gonna burn themselves down…
Seriously, that’s fascinating. When I started working for the court in 2005 we had a new meth lab discovered every couple weeks, with EPA involvement if it wasn’t on fire and often after it was put out, along with central Ohio drug enforcement, the good ol’ boys of CODE. That went on for years, then shut off like a light switch when Mexican meth got so cheap and plentiful no one around here made it. You still can’t buy the good decongestant because of those days, but it turns out that stuff was bad for you anyhow, so oh well.
I hadn’t heard meth labs were back, but I haven’t worked full time for the courts in over a year, either.
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Mark P said on May 1, 2026 at 8:45 am
My cousin (my father’ half-brother’s son’s son, let’s call him J) is currently in a drug “boot camp” at a Georgia state prison. He’s in his early 30’s and a petty habitual offender since he was in his teens. He’s been in and out of county jail since his late teens, and there are lots of crimes he’s gotten away with, like stealing money from his widowed grandmother and getting a credit card in his late grandfather’s name. I think he’s a sociopath. I strongly suspect that his mother was on drugs and alcohol while she was pregnant with him. But his father is not much better, and I know his mother was not on either. J has two babies with his baby mama, who also has a daughter with another person. Baby mama lives with her teenaged sister, a young brother with a kid of his own, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, plus who knows who else. Everyone but J’s grandmother thinks the world is better off with him in prison. His last arrest was too much for his long-time lawyer, who referred him to another lawyer this time around. His grandmother paid his fees.
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Deborah said on May 1, 2026 at 10:41 am
Mark P, your story reminds me of the beginning segment of the movie Idiocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA.
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Icarus said on May 1, 2026 at 11:12 am
Mark P, that living arrangement is exactly what created Michael Myers in the Rob Zombie Halloween Reboot.
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Linda said on May 1, 2026 at 1:49 pm
The thing I remember most about Wildfire is that the summer it came out, I had to go on a long road trip through places with no rock n roll or r n b stations, and I heard that damn thing every third song. My ears bled.
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Hank Stuever said on May 1, 2026 at 2:53 pm
It has been observed that the youngs do not quite grasp the concept that we were not ALL uniformly crazy about every pop song that charted in the ’70s and ’80s. Just because it was on the radio didn’t mean we had the power or permission to lean over and change it. I remember when it was legal to openly disdain music that is now “universally beloved” in its current guise as “yacht rock.” YMMV.
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David C said on May 1, 2026 at 5:37 pm
I don’t pay much attention to lyrics. I’ve certainly heard the song, but until this morning I didn’t know it was a sad song about a frozen girl and her horse.
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Brandon said on May 1, 2026 at 5:45 pm
I don’t think I’ve heard the song. It’s another one to check out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire_(Michael_Martin_Murphey_song)#In_popular_culture
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Sherri said on May 1, 2026 at 7:22 pm
A federal appeals court has issued a stay banning mailing mifepristone. Louisiana is suing the FDA over mifepristone, and sought a stay banning mail order mifepristone, saying they were suffering irreparable harm due to this workaround of their near total abortion ban.
If I wanted to live in Louisiana, I would live in Louisiana. What I don’t want is to pay taxes to support Louisiana, which receives more federal dollars than it pays in taxes, only to have Louisiana take away our rights. Louisiana wants to underinvest in health and education and infrastructure, keep a underclass away from political power, free-ride off the better economic performing blue states they hate, and then complain that they should be able to force their neo-Confederate values on the rest of us.
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Dexter Friend said on May 2, 2026 at 1:20 pm
I am a 45 year fan of Tom Waits and have seen him perform twice in Chicago, once at Steppenwolf and once at the Chicago Theater, on Halloween night, 1987. I have all his albums on vinyl or CD up until maybe 15 years ago. He is only 80 days younger than me, so he had the draft hanging, so he joined the USCG and apparently was not deployed to war.
So I missed maybe a couple albums and songs.
This morning I listed to a compilation on Amazon Music and a tune was played called “The Day After Tomorrow”. The lyrics woke me up; I thought nobody who was never in the military could have possible written those words. Frequently, Kathleen is credited as co-writer of lyrics, but I knew she would not be on this song. And that is why I just had to search Tom’s military career for the first time.
The lyrics are point-on.
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MarkH said on May 3, 2026 at 2:37 pm
Hank Stuever nailed it @8, had me laughing.
Wildfire: When it came out I was just finishing college at OSU, but still working the bar at a local restaurant. One waitress there was a very attractive worldly wise girl, very smart, always seemed to be above it all, very unsentimental. She loved horses, had one she took good care of. When this song played, however she just melted, sometimes just started singing it at the bar. Someone finally asked, “What the hell’s gotten into you?” “Best song ever!”, she replied. Needless to say, there was some disagreement. And disappointment.
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