Different drummer

Posted by Henry on January 05, 2005

In Reply to: "On your own" phrases posted by ESC on January 04, 2005

: : : : : I wonder if people in this forum have some good phrases meaning a person is 'on his own'in something .... in a situation that compels self-reliance? Or in a lonley terra incognita? Confronting a mystery or challengeon one's own.

: : : : : Thanks.

: : : : It's interesting that this question was posted by "Spark" because it was the character "Sparks" in The Ox-Bow Incident who sang the spiritual "Lonesome Valley" after the lynching. So, when you're on your own, you are "walking the lonesome valley". I can't seem to pin down a website with the exact lyrics that I recall from the movie, but Google finds lots of versions of it.

: : : "Paddle your own canoe" is traditional.

: : "Plough a lonely furrow" also. Or, if you want cockney rhyming slang... "all on your Jack", from Jack Jones, who was some sort of singer.

: How about alone romantically. The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Georgette tells her boyfriend Ted to shape up or: You can play dot-to-dot with your own freckles.

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

• The Lonesome Valley SR 05/January/05
  • W.Va. connection ESC 05/January/05