3.30.24
Someone painted “April Fool”
In big black letters on a “Dead End” sign
I had my foot on the gas
As i left the road and blew out my mind

I was born in 1974 and knew Kenny Rogers as the country singer who wrote and performed The Gambler, Coward of the County, and other good to middling songs my parents played endlessly (along with Anne Murray) on the 8-track player.

To this day, I unironically love Islands In a Stream, Rogers’ mega-hit duet with Dolly Parton. It’s a lovely song that is so tightly written and arranged, not to mention filled with heart.

It wasn’t til college in the 1990s that I discovered there was a whole other side to Rogers, and it blew my mind.

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) is a psychedelic tune from 1967 when Rogers was with The First Edition. The band had been known only as The First Edition early on, but they switched things up to Kenny Rogers and The First Edition shortly before releasing their 1967 album, entitled The First Edition.

Follow that? Good.

When I woke up yesterday morning, Just Dropped In was playing in my head. I don’t know if it slipped in through a dream or if it was the result of a long week of proctoring standardized testing and navigating the emotional minefield that is an elementary school a month before spring break.

Either way, it was there, and it stayed on repeat all day. I’m not complaining. It was a good reminder to keep checking in with myself to see how I was doing and figure out what I needed. It’s a healthy mental health routine.

Granted, Rogers was singing about conditions created under conditions very different from those found in a school, but still.

The song was first recorded by troubling sex pest Jerry Lee Lewis, and it’s been covered over the years by other more morally upstanding musicians including Murder By Death, Willie Nelson, and Eagles of Death Metal.

I just realized in a bit of a happy coincidence that the song also references April Fools Day, which is a couple days away. I have no doubt that as I spend that infamous day with 15 third graders, I’ll need to be doing regular check-in on my condition.