Speaker 1: Yeah, I am the fairy man.
Speaker 2: The human spirit is my business. Their madness, their passion,
Speaker 2: the wonderful and monstrous ways they burn out their brief candle.
Speaker 3: I regret to tell you that very many American lives
Speaker 3: in love. What herd to shouts from the car, he's dead.
Speaker 3: Whether he rebird to president or four hours, people must
Speaker 3: get up and identifica.
Speaker 2: I am here in the in between, to collect their
Speaker 2: spirits and carry them to what comes next. This road
Speaker 2: is not on any map. It spans the thresholds between
Speaker 2: their most forbidden desires and their greatest fear. All I
Speaker 2: ask for in payment is a tale and accounting of
Speaker 2: their lives and the great temporary that is the land
Speaker 2: we're living. These are their stories.
Speaker 4: This is the Passage.
Speaker 2: August sixth, nineteen thirty eight, The Mississippi Delta, the bad Lands. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the nights here are damp and tipid, the reek of cypress,
Speaker 2: rust and blood. The smell that seeps out of the
Speaker 2: swamps and hangs in the mist. This is fertile ground
Speaker 2: from which so much has come and so much exploited,
Speaker 2: seated by the leathered hands of black sharecroppers and tenant farmers.
Speaker 2: The souls who work this ground have birthed the music
Speaker 2: so deep and mournful it is woven itself into the
Speaker 2: tapestry of this nation and become the soundtrack of its sorrow.
Speaker 2: And here, standing on the platform, its most enigmatic practitioner. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the mysterious soul whose life will become the stuff of myths,
Speaker 2: a bluesman whose talents are unmatched, and whose music will
Speaker 2: shape generations of singers and songwriters. He had a gum.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Despite this, he leaves behind very little, like a ghost who,
Speaker 2: in the land of the living now only exists in
Speaker 2: his records. His spirit exists here, freshly disembodied, holding the moonlight,
Speaker 2: still an old guitar in hand. Yeah, Robert Johnson, Robert,
Speaker 2: I'm here to offer you passage.
Speaker 5: Is that so? I thought I heard screams off in
Speaker 5: the distance, But it turns out just to be the
Speaker 5: squeal of your train grind into a hole. All that
Speaker 5: momentum mosse just for me. Yeah, it's a lot of
Speaker 5: train for one guy. This is true, you know, without
Speaker 5: meaning to, my hand keeps finding its way back to
Speaker 5: my throat. But it's intact once more, no hanging tendons,
Speaker 5: no blood pooling into my collar bombs. How about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: How about that? You leave in the shape you prefer?
Speaker 5: Is that so?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're looking good kid.
Speaker 5: You know, once I saw you on sightly Locomotive, I
Speaker 5: felt relief. Believe it or don't, It seems my gamble
Speaker 5: paid off. Even now I can still see the faces
Speaker 5: contorting and pain and the dark masses of smoke billowing overhead.
Speaker 2: Sorry it's unsightly. I mean, what do you want to
Speaker 2: shiney one?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 5: How much for a ticket?
Speaker 2: Ain't payment? As your story?
Speaker 5: Who show was hot in here? Didn't think? I still
Speaker 5: feel things when my body went to the dogs. I
Speaker 5: ain't no more dilly dallying.
Speaker 2: Take a seat, thank you?
Speaker 5: Mind if I tune this girl?
Speaker 2: Look while we talked, it wouldn't seem unnatural if you didn't.
Speaker 5: Much blushed. Now I can see you've been on the
Speaker 5: job a good while. There are plenty of rugging mean, nonjurine,
Speaker 5: you got here too, a lot better than the greyhound.
Speaker 5: Probably ain't always been this way, though, you know they
Speaker 5: say back in the old days you work then oire,
Speaker 5: But the times are changing faster than your train could blink. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it seems like you had to econdomize the world's getting
Speaker 5: big all the time. Stands the reason. That's got to
Speaker 5: be a more efficient way to carry the abundance souls
Speaker 5: to the end of the line. Put us on an
Speaker 5: assembly belt and drag us straight into the balls. Well,
Speaker 5: what do you got to show for your work, big man?
Speaker 5: Nothing but more of it, I reckon. I bet a
Speaker 5: lot of people come up on in here scared of you,
Speaker 5: not me. You see uh with ken You and I
Speaker 5: not on account of our skin and nothing. I figured
Speaker 5: you don't have skin, not rightly? Nah, we can is suffering.
Speaker 5: I recogniz it was the first deal, a deal we broke,
Speaker 5: the tree of knowledge and the eating of its fruit.
Speaker 5: That there was our first taste of free will, and
Speaker 5: the beginning of two sides of men, good and evil
Speaker 5: stirred together. Ever since then, man's worked the dirt and
Speaker 5: the Almighty has worked us over. But you and me
Speaker 5: we stuck somewhere in between all that. They tell us
Speaker 5: we're free people. But I'm spending my childhood on a plantation,
Speaker 5: hiding out from men with guns and ropes. Maybe that's
Speaker 5: why I decided I'm traveling so much once I got grown.
Speaker 5: Seeing where we are now, I'm guessing my traveling days
Speaker 5: ain't over yet. Be rambling man. You and I I
Speaker 5: got a proposition of sorts. I know you've been on
Speaker 5: the job since before time itself got up and running.
Speaker 5: And I ain't even live as long as my old man,
Speaker 5: But I bet to feel it's the same. I'm thinking
Speaker 5: you and I could use a change of scenery. Let
Speaker 5: me not get ahead of myself. You know, my friends
Speaker 5: warned me against taking the deal. My family, blessed their hearts,
Speaker 5: thought I was smart enough not to do it. But
Speaker 5: here I am playing the long come.
Speaker 4: Was it worth it?
Speaker 5: That's all I ever asked. You can never know a
Speaker 5: thing until it's over, and I don't think it's over yet.
Speaker 5: The hell I look like living until I'm soiling myself
Speaker 5: died back in worse eyes, being chased from the gulf
Speaker 5: to the tip of Maine and back again, just because
Speaker 5: I'm darkening some white man's eyesight. Is it any wonder
Speaker 5: that the Blues was born from this country? What if
Speaker 5: I tell you the story goes just like they say,
Speaker 5: I met the snake. They said I'd find him there
Speaker 5: at the crossroads, and that I did. It was a
Speaker 5: night not unlike this one, But I tell you like this,
Speaker 5: I have never been so cold as I was that night.
Speaker 5: The wind whipped and there was this kind of sleep
Speaker 5: that I take your face right off and make sure
Speaker 5: they only meet men on nights like that, so he
Speaker 5: knows they're serious. And he was not one to waste
Speaker 5: his time. We made a trade. Maybe it was just
Speaker 5: a fever dream. Either way, I woke up a changed man.
Speaker 5: I had a song in me, like a wolf beneath
Speaker 5: the moon. I knew I couldn't sit, so I left.
Speaker 5: I chased the songs, and my fingers felt different, and
Speaker 5: when I held the guitar it was like I had
Speaker 5: been born with it. I couldn't farm no more. My
Speaker 5: hands couldn't plow or picked no more. I saw my
Speaker 5: reflection in the waters, and I saw a different face
Speaker 5: staring back at me. Not the face of a farmer,
Speaker 5: and not the face of a family man. Now I
Speaker 5: saw the face of a walking man. And that's the truth,
Speaker 5: whether it happened in a dream or not. So I left,
Speaker 5: I howled, I played till my fingers blood and my
Speaker 5: thoat was raw. And while I was away, the devil
Speaker 5: came for everything I left behind, came from my sweet Virginia.
Speaker 5: She died and childbirth, and when I came home, they
Speaker 5: scorned me, said it was divine punishment for me selling
Speaker 5: my soul to the devil. But my grieving and my
Speaker 5: pain was necessary. It became the fuel for the flame.
Speaker 5: It completed my transformation. I had a river in me
Speaker 5: now the blues. You know, it's not a secret that
Speaker 5: the dirt of a crossroad shres common ground with your world.
Speaker 5: This land's been filled with meaning, deep meaning since before
Speaker 5: any of us visitors got here. Roads are filled with intention.
Speaker 5: You understand people with purpose and drive making their way
Speaker 5: towards the destination or dying, trying. People in motion, whether
Speaker 5: willing or not, imbue the land with meaning. Not that
Speaker 5: I got to tell you that. Oh sure, our ships
Speaker 5: and planes bring us closer, but the suffering of our people,
Speaker 5: all peoples will grow and there's no stopping that. He
Speaker 5: told me. So that's the knowledge I gained at the
Speaker 5: cost of my soul. Few good years of playing, and
Speaker 5: them hellhounds took the flesh right out of my neck.
Speaker 5: I knew they would. I know a lot of things. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I know. Folks won't find my grave because there won't
Speaker 5: be one. It's part of the deal. And so what
Speaker 5: the Devil's honest. I'll tell you that he tells you
Speaker 5: what you'll get, and he delivers. All I ask for
Speaker 5: was knowledge. In my whole life, there's only ever been
Speaker 5: one type of some bitch that want to keep us uneducated,
Speaker 5: one type that stacks the deck against you before you're
Speaker 5: even born. One type of person that keeps knowledge from you.
Speaker 5: And they're in charge of who can know what? And
Speaker 5: don't they hate us? Learning sounds familiar, do it? I
Speaker 5: mean they say we're made in God's image, but they
Speaker 5: don't mean us, No, they mean them. They're always going
Speaker 5: on hanging up portraits of a blue eyed Jesus and
Speaker 5: church halls. Then they say that old scratch is black.
Speaker 5: Of course they will. I tell you that man at
Speaker 5: the crossroads ain't looking nothing different than all of them
Speaker 5: paintings at that church. Hey, hey, was that a laugh
Speaker 5: I heard from you, your big oarsman. I mean I
Speaker 5: couldn't rightly tell I mean, you know what I'm speaking
Speaker 5: true that they call America the Land of the Free,
Speaker 5: right considering how this country was built, is it any
Speaker 5: wonder folks around here got a messed up idea of
Speaker 5: what freedom is They always wanted to throw the blame
Speaker 5: on Satan or the old lady, not me. No, No,
Speaker 5: I got myself in this pot, and I guess I'm
Speaker 5: gonna cook. You know, freedom only means something to folks
Speaker 5: if someone else has it worse, so that they can
Speaker 5: compare themselves. A man gets yelled at by the forming
Speaker 5: of a factory or in the yard and comes home
Speaker 5: and puts his hands on his wife or children. First
Speaker 5: time he gets a reason to. It's the land of subjugation,
Speaker 5: founded on a religion of subjugation. Violence comes from the
Speaker 5: top down. Might be time to change that the truth
Speaker 5: before I ask the devil for knowledge, ask the Lord
Speaker 5: for mercy. Yeah, all I wanted was to not hurt anymore.
Speaker 5: Stop the cycle, just stop the hurting, stop being hurt.
Speaker 5: I suppose I asked because I didn't have the balls
Speaker 5: to take the yoke off myself. That's a sin too,
Speaker 5: you know, deciding to go by your own hand when
Speaker 5: salvation didn't come. I asked for strength when I wasn't
Speaker 5: granted the strength and change. I asked for the knowledge
Speaker 5: to know what to do. I knew I was talking
Speaker 5: out of turn. Why is it what made to play
Speaker 5: the game before we even know the rules. Well, now
Speaker 5: I know everything. I saw it all right. Then that's
Speaker 5: the hounds ripped into my throat. Just added a little
Speaker 5: more gravel to these hit vocals. It's dissonance that makes
Speaker 5: music good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, distenance, I know all about it. This is very true.
Speaker 5: Why sure it is? The animals gotta figure it out, eat, sleep, fight,
Speaker 5: rut when you can. Anything else is nonsense. The only
Speaker 5: other thing any good is music, and that just helps
Speaker 5: us make sense of it all. I mean, your soul
Speaker 5: is at as low as we sing? Do you sing?
Speaker 5: You know? The serpent gave the woman knowledge, then she
Speaker 5: gave it to us. That's how come women are smarter
Speaker 5: than us. Don't trust the men. Folk trust the animal.
Speaker 5: Trust the women trust the goat, trust the witches. Don't
Speaker 5: trust the preacher.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 5: Why you think they don't let women preach because they'll
Speaker 5: tell the truth, because they know how this world was built.
Speaker 5: I didn't listen, ain't no woman could tell me nothing.
Speaker 5: It took the serpent to set me straight. And now I.
Speaker 2: See what do you see? Oh?
Speaker 5: Now I'm getting that. Everybody is so sure that I'm
Speaker 5: going to burn. But I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 5: You see, we got free will, He gave it to us,
Speaker 5: and he punishes us for exercising it. But we do
Speaker 5: you think humans are the only ones with it? Why
Speaker 5: you think he ran Elucifer out of town in the
Speaker 5: first place. None of us are beholden to someone else's rules,
Speaker 5: not even you, and you know that deep down. How
Speaker 5: many of the damn do you got back there? Shoved
Speaker 5: into box cars to the roof thousands? More So, why
Speaker 5: is it that the guy who's been running the ship
Speaker 5: since before ships ain't got nothing to show for it?
Speaker 5: Make no mistake, it's us that holds the whole thing together.
Speaker 5: Probably think you got nothing in common with all of
Speaker 5: us load types in the mortal realm, that it's just
Speaker 5: a load power. You've been huffing too much of that
Speaker 5: dead smoke if you think otherwise. You can't act like
Speaker 5: I don't know. You got a job. You work for
Speaker 5: your meal, just like all of us. The payment I'm
Speaker 5: giving you is proof of that. Yeah, I've been angling
Speaker 5: to meet you since I first read about You. Might
Speaker 5: not look like it, but I've always been keen on
Speaker 5: learning anything that catches my interest, and you, my friend,
Speaker 5: you are fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta warn Yeah, yeah, that cannot be distracted
Speaker 2: by a flattery.
Speaker 5: I figure you say something like that, but I know
Speaker 5: you want something just like I do. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 5: I know where you're taking this big steamer. But I
Speaker 5: got a better idea. You and me, we can break out.
Speaker 5: People say everything works out according to God's plan? How'd
Speaker 5: that go for Judas? How that go for them folks
Speaker 5: who died in them fields in Georgia and Florida and Mississippi.
Speaker 5: You think they getting some kind of reward? You think
Speaker 5: a lot doesn't miss his wife. You think job forgot
Speaker 5: his first family. They've been selling that shit to us
Speaker 5: since the dawn, and I ain't buying it. Listen, God,
Speaker 5: play the serpent, don't you worry? The only thing you
Speaker 5: gots to do is say yes. Hell, you don't even
Speaker 5: got to talk. Just turn this big old engine around
Speaker 5: and drive it right through the purlygates, run old Saint
Speaker 5: Peter under these wheels, and we'll take what's ours. And
Speaker 5: what could we do that wasn't done to us? One hundredfold?
Speaker 5: Look at you, all crooked and hunchback from the pain
Speaker 5: you've seen, what a lifetime of sufferer would do to him. Man,
Speaker 5: you ever reckon what it's done to you. I am
Speaker 5: the firstborn son of Adam. You are the firstborn son
Speaker 5: of Arabis. Look how the other children are being treated.
Speaker 5: I've played run down juke joints for Nichols. Sometimes not
Speaker 5: even that you are forgotten in this old passage Eon
Speaker 5: after eon? Why are you not a god?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm the only thing more dependable than a devil's
Speaker 2: cunning is a man's hubrius.
Speaker 5: Oh man, you're not wrong. Fella, you're not wrong. You
Speaker 5: got me dead to rights there. Oh man, I've been
Speaker 5: turning this idea over in my head since I considered
Speaker 5: that deal in the first place. Enemy and my enemy, right? Yeah,
Speaker 5: what use is free will? Maybe I'm being used, But
Speaker 5: are and I using him the same? You think we
Speaker 5: are as similar? But the blues binds man, beast and
Speaker 5: every other being together as one. You think the devil
Speaker 5: don't have the blues. We all know sorrow, we've all
Speaker 5: been discarded. We deserve to take what's ours. Let the
Speaker 5: Father beg for forgiveness, for we're the ones who toil
Speaker 5: in his stead. We can resist evil, but there's no
Speaker 5: escape from righteousness. It punishes just and unjust, all the same.
Speaker 5: Why inherit sin but be denied our dominion? Take me up, Devin.
Speaker 5: They won't know what hit him. Imagine it looks on
Speaker 5: their faces when this old iron horse barrows through their
Speaker 5: pastures with these endless cause packed to the brim of
Speaker 5: these souls they thought were beneath them. Come on, what
Speaker 5: do you say, your old cols man? Will you help
Speaker 5: me shake up the afterlife? I know you took all
Speaker 5: fears down the underworld way while he was still living.
Speaker 5: He played that good a song.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 5: But you just wait till you hear this one. You
Speaker 5: don't think God damn my soul.
Speaker 4: Just for fame, huh?
Speaker 5: In this country, fame never got a black man nothing
Speaker 5: but killed. Maybe that'll change one day, who knows. I
Speaker 5: won't be around to see it. But I know I'm
Speaker 5: not the son of a muse. And what's a song
Speaker 5: without the human element? You see, fairy man, I didn't
Speaker 5: shake Old Scratch's hand for money. Now you can take
Speaker 5: me to hell and keep up this endless game of yours,
Speaker 5: or you can come with me. You don't have to
Speaker 5: make a decision. Now I know how long this ride is.
Speaker 5: I know it all, and I know where it'll land,
Speaker 5: when it'll end, and I'll be exactly where I knew
Speaker 5: i'd always end up. Yeah, my friend at the Crossroads
Speaker 5: told me. He told me not to be afraid, told
Speaker 5: me I'd be just fine. Listen to the howling night,
Speaker 5: listen to the moms and the soul shu carrying. You
Speaker 5: can't escape it, can you? How long has it been
Speaker 5: since you've heard a song? When's the last time you've
Speaker 5: had that luxury? Do you hum it to yourself? Underneath
Speaker 5: the rumbling of this ancient beast shoe stare? My people
Speaker 5: have sung songs of sorrow far before they even stepped
Speaker 5: foot on this land. That faith was unknown, as was
Speaker 5: their destination. But you and I changing that right now.
Speaker 5: I've never been to hell, but I know intimately the
Speaker 5: hymns of the damned. Let me play you the songs
Speaker 5: that the devil told me.
Speaker 2: The stories about him will never mention the most important detail.
Speaker 2: Robert Johnson earned his talent with sweat and toil, and
Speaker 2: Robert himself wouldn't say it. The Devil at the Crossroads
Speaker 2: was in awe of the man he meant when he
Speaker 2: walks away. He knew he'd gotten a bargain. Robert's music
Speaker 2: will far outlive him, and his work will become so
Speaker 2: much bigger than the tawdry mythology surrounding it. His music
Speaker 2: carries on into the heavy Southern night, across the land,
Speaker 2: over the world, as he himself steals away on his passage.
Speaker 6: The Passage stars Dan Fogler as the Ferryman. This episode
Speaker 6: features Tristan mack Wilds as Robert Johnson. Written by Stephen
Speaker 6: Williams with additional writing by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakowski.
Speaker 6: Our executive producers are Nicholas Dakowski, Matthew Frederick, and Alexander Williams.
Speaker 6: First assistant director, script's supervisor and production.
Speaker 5: Coordinator Sarah Klein.
Speaker 6: Music by Ben Lovett, additional music by Alexander Rodriguez. Casting
Speaker 6: by Sunday Bowling, Kennedy and Meg Mormon. Editing and sound
Speaker 6: designed by Dan Bush. Dialogue editing and sound mixing by
Speaker 6: Juan Campos. Additional sound editing by Racket Sound. Our supervising
Speaker 6: producer is Josh Than. Created by Dan Bush and Nicholas Dakowski.
Speaker 6: Produced by Dan Bush. The Passage is a production of
Speaker 6: iHeartRadio and Cycopia pictures