You Stay Here

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/_NDQvU2NsFI

You stay here 
And I'll go look for God
Not so hard
'Cause I know where he's not
I will bring him back with me
Make him listen -- make him see

You stay here
And I'll go look for wood

~  Richard Shindell

"You Stay Here", from Richard Shindell's 2000 release, Somewhere Near Paterson, is a song about Bosnian refugees fleeing the besieged city of Sarajevo.  The Bosnian War for Independence claimed a five-year siege of the city, from 1992 to 1996, a time in which Serbian Nationalist forces assaulted the Bosnians, leaving over 11,000 dead (including 1500 children) and injuring 56,000.  Bosnian refugees settled in the United States between 1992 and 2007.

Shindell tells the story of how the song came to be.  A line popped into his head before he went to sleep one night.  "You stay here and I'll go look for wood."  He wrote the line down, but when he woke in the morning and discovered it, he had no idea what it was for, who said it, or what he should do with it.  But having been reading recently about the refugees from Sarajevo, he determined that the speaker of the line was a Bosnian trying to keep his family safe while looking for basic survival needs.  "That's the thing about writing songs," said Shindell.  "When you get a voice, when you find out who is singing, you get a very clear idea of their identity, the song writes itself."

The five verses of the song each deal with a basic need:  wood for the fire, bread for sustenance, coats for warmth, guns in case "the Tiger comes one night," and God.

And it begs the question:  where is God?  "I know where he's not."

The refugees in need of asylum today may come from different places than they did in the years preceding and following the turn of the century.  But the crises that compel them to seek a better life are just as dire.  There is someone who needs to listen, who needs to see . . . but I don't think it's God.

Which Side?

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/33kV-_jUuw8

There's a restlessness out in the street; there's a question in the air
How long if this theft goes on will our country still be here?
People know the game is rigged, even as they play
They see their expectations slowly slip away
They've got subsidies for billionaires, there's a bailout for the banks
A monopoly on medicine, and a sale on armored tanks
The whole damn country's being sold -- out that revolving door
Between Washington and Wall Street, like it's one big Dollar Store

Come on, come on, come on if you're coming
Which side, which side are you on?

~  Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne is no stranger to protesting ideology that threatens our country.  He has been proactive for most of his professional career as a singer-songwriter.  I can harken back to the No Nukes concerts in September 1979, five nights at Madison Square Garden (and I attended one or two of them), during which several beloved musical icons protested the use of nuclear energy.  Organized by Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE), organizers Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt, Harvey Wasserman and John Hall spoke truth to power with a lineup of amazing, proactive, talented rock and roll legends.  It was powerful.

And Jackson did not stop there.  Standing in the Breach, his 2014 release, offered several protest songs, including "Which Side?"  As with so many political songs, the release date does not render the song to a particular year.  "Which Side?" is as relevant now as it was in 2014, if not more so.  There's a restlessness out in the street; there's a question in the air.  As true today as it was two years ago.  The response to the current administration's denigration of women's rights as well as its ban on Muslim immigration has been swift and strong, begging the question, "Which side are you on?"  And if you haven't yet asked yourself that question, you need to wonder why.  I know which side I am (and have always been) on.  Women's rights are human rights.  America is the beacon of light to those  who seek shelter and safety.  These ideals have not lessened over the course of my lifetime.  To watch them be threatened now simply breaks my heart.

I suspect that Jackson is wielding his pen right now, finding the words and the tunes to give voice to the injustices that are staring us in the face.  I will look forward to his next release and take heart in his ability to meld our collective thoughts into a musical protest of that which threatens our integrity as a nation.

"All poets, all writers are political.  They either maintain the status quo, or they say, "Something's wrong, let's change it for the better."  ~ Sonia Sanchez

Keep working toward the change, Jackson.

Worn Out American Dream

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/IuLFfRP1cxA

I see no refuge for the weary
I see no handouts for the poor
I see no sense of satisfaction
On all the ones who just endure
All the slings and arrows slandered
Against the face of the poor man's dream
Where the rich circle in like vultures
Picking all their pockets clean
Don't you give me your phony smile
Don't you tell me no more rules
How many people will you trample down
Before you're finally through?
Come on, face the situation
All the sadness that it brings
Got me lost inside the shuffle of
A worn out American dream

~  Jimmy LaFave

If you thought this song was written recently, like maybe within the last week, you would be wrong.  "Worn Out American Dream" is on Jimmy LaFave's 1995 release, Buffalo Return to the Plains.  It harkens back to Newt Gingrich's America, not too far a cry from the current administration's America, the one they are going to make great again.

And if you believed me a few posts ago, when I said that I was taking my mind on a vacation from current affairs, all I can say is I'm sorry, I can't do it.  No, wait, I'm not sorry.  As Jim James sings in his latest, "Here in Spirit," If you don't speak out / We can't hear it.  My voice may be small, but this blog is my megaphone, and I will speak out.

And here it is:  What the fuck is happening?  We are moving closer every day to a totalitarian state.  If this isn't scaring the crap out of you, you are not paying attention.  How many people will you trample down / Before you're finally through?  If this is what "great" is, I want no part of it.  I cannot even recognize my America anymore, at least not in its government.  I do see my America in the protests, in the countering acts of generosity and kindheartedness, and in the communal spirit of liberty and justice.

The move toward totalitarianism is happening rapidly; that is part of the playbook.  But the response to that abuse of our free and democratic state is happening just as rapidly.  Within hours of yesterday's ban on Muslims entering this country, there were protests at our main airports, a movement which seemed to happen spontaneously and passionately.  Resistance.  It is our only hope.

And please, those of you with a different ideology than mine, spare me the "Give him a chance" pablum.  We are so far past that, and you know it.  In a recent media conversation, one of the commentators made the point that our hope lies with the Republican congressmen.  They need to voice their opposition to the current trend of upending American values and morals.  There is enough Pollyanna in me to believe that in their heart of hearts, they know that we are heading into the darkness and that their consciences will force them to speak out against it.  The time is now.  Before it is too late.  With each new executive order, the doomsday clock is ticking.  Call me Debbie Downer if you must.

I will continue to argue for the truly great America, the one that is compassionate and welcoming.  If you care to sing/read along, thank you.

Debbie Downer

Listen while you read: https://youtu.be/BLPpjVYumMI

I'm growing older every time I blink my eyes
Boring, neurotic, everything that I despise
We had some lows, we had some mids, we had some highs
Sell me all your golden rules and I'll see
If that's the kind of person that I wanna be
If I'm not happy, I'll be glad I kept receipts

I don't ask much of you
I used to wonder what to wear

Don't stop listening, I'm not finished yet
I'm not fishing for your compliments

Courtney Barnett is a 28-year-old singer/songwriter from Down Under.  I first heard her a couple of years ago with her breakout single, "Avant Gardener," in which she tells the story of trying to avoid inherent laziness and get busy planting a garden.  Despite the good intentions, an allergic reaction leads to an encounter with EMTs and an ambulance ride.  It is Courtney's signature style that takes random, everyday experiences and crafts them into story-songs.  Her dry wit and powerful observation skills inform her lyrics, providing lines like "The yard is full of hard rubbish, it's a mess/ and I guess the neighbors must think we run a meth lab/ We should amend that."

"Debbie Downer," from the 2015 release Sometimes I Just Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit, incorporates that same dry wit, as well as lines that compel one to "sit and think."  I love the line "I used to wonder what to wear" for its simplicity as well as its larger meaning.  Think of all the mundane things that take up our time, the worrisome nonsense that clutters our minds.  What to wear?  Seriously?

When asked about "Debbie Downer," Barnett had this to say:  "That's about people who take advantage of you, that treat you like shit.  People who, when you're miserable, say, 'Stop being miserable,' which isn't really a helpful comment."

Hey, Debbie Downer, turn that frown upside down and just be happy.  As if it were that simple.

Barnett may not be your cup of tea, but I find her refreshing.  Leave it to her to find a subject no one has ever written about before and then give it a new twist.  She's not finished yet, and I won't stop listening.

City of Immigrants

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/75H8J6lURZc

All of us are immigrants
Every daughter, every son
Everyone is everyone
All of us are immigrants -- everyone
Livin' in a city of immigrants
River flows out and the sea rolls in
Washin' away nearly all of my sins
Livin' in a city of immigrants

~  Steve Earle

When I was little, I was well aware of my ancestry.  I was a mutt, but I knew that my people came here from Italy, England, Ireland, and Germany.  And I was innately proud of all of them.  I think I took particular joy in my Irish heritage, which I cannot really explain, since I was closest to my maternal grandmother, who claimed Italian roots.  And yes, she was known for her spaghetti sauce and her "Easter pie."  In my adult life, I have traveled to Italy, Germany, and Ireland.  England is on my bucket list.  These countries are crucial to my understanding of who I am and how I came to be an American.

In grade school, we were fortunate to have a vibrant education in music.  Our principal, Mrs. Little, was also our chorus teacher.  The choices she made in songs for us to sing, mostly from the Fred Waring Songbook, have stayed with us all these years.  For the sake of this post, two of those songs stand out.  One was the song crafted from the Emma Lazarus poem,  "The New Colossus" ("Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor.")  This is the poem engraved on the Statue of Liberty.  I can still recite/sing that poem/song to this day, and I still shake my head, wondering why that beautiful philosophy of taking in immigrants has been upended.  The other song was the Woody Guthrie classic, "This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land."  And again, I shake my head, certain that Woody Guthrie is turning over in his grave.  All of this makes me so sad.

Having grown up in a predominantly white area, there was little diversity for me to experience.  College didn't offer much more.  It is only now, while in my winter home in Florida, that I am surrounded by different ethnicities.  My condominium complex (small, and not one of those 55+ places) is so diverse, I feel like I am the odd one.  But no, not really.  I am quite comfortable here, as I'm sure everyone else is.  For me, it's just different.  And I am embracing that difference.  My children, even at their relatively young ages, have experienced more diversity in the places that they have chosen to live than I ever had.  And they don't bat an eye at any of it.  It is their normal.  As it should be.

So who are all these xenophobes who want to build walls and deport "aliens" and prevent refugees from seeking asylum here?  As commentator Chris Hayes tweeted, "Of all the groups to scapegoat and vilify, scapegoating and vilifying refugees fleeing the horror of war is about as low as it gets."  If that picture of the Syrian toddler washed up on a beach in Turkey in September of 2015 didn't get through to you, nothing will.

City of black, city of white
City of light, city of innocents
City of sweat, city of tears
City of prayers, city of immigrants

Uncle John's Band

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/TSIajKGHZRk

Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore
When life looks like Easy Street, there is danger at your door
Think this through with me
Let me know your mind
Whoa-oh, what I want to know is are you kind?

~ Hunter / Garcia  (The Grateful Dead)

Well, I wish I could believe that these first days were the hardest days, but I'm afraid the hard days are just beginning.  Oh.  Wait.  I said I wasn't going to go there, didn't I?

"Uncle John's Band" was released in 1970 on Workingman's Dead, and my memory tells me that it was my first favorite Grateful Dead song.  Of course I was already aware of The Dead, but there was so much good music coming out of the late 60s, I was probably in a CSN or CCR coma at the time.  But I can still see myself in the bed in the room that I was in when I first heard this song.  And I remember my reaction to it.  Goddam, well I declare, have you heard the like?  As hard as it is to pick a favorite Grateful Dead song, I can say with certainty that this was my first favorite!

You can learn a lot about the song just by googling it.  There are masses of Deadheads out there who spend a lot of time annotating and discussing Grateful Dead songs.  I'll let you find out on your own who Uncle John was, what a buck dancer's choice is, and where the riverside is.  One of the things I love about the lyrics is that it is easy to isolate several of the lines and just insert them into one's everyday lexicon.  Are you kind?  Ain't no time to hate.  Where does the time go?

And then there's this: Their walls are built of cannonballs; their motto is 'Don't tread on me.'   Well . . . Nope, not going there.

For many Dead fans, Uncle John's Band, despite its own origins, is just another name for The Grateful Dead.  And what a sweet dream . . . to imagine dancing on a riverbank to the tunes of Jerry and Company!  I love the riparian setting and can't help but think of the old pre-Civil War spiritual "Down By the Riverside" with its decisive refrain:  I ain't gonna study war no more.

Oh, if only there were no more wars to study.

Getting Ready to Get Down

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/HnQ89jZvZD0

They said your soul needed savin' so they sent you off to Bible school
You knew a little more than they had heard was in the Golden Rule
Be good to everybody, be a strength to the weak
A joy to the joyful, be the laughter in the grief
And give your love freely to whoever that you please
Don't let nobody tell you 'bout who you oughtta be
And when you get damned in the popular opinion
It's just another damn of the damns you're not giving

I'm getting ready to get down, getting ready to get down, getting ready to get down

~ Josh Ritter

I include a link to my song choice at the top of the page in the event that you are not familiar with the song, or perhaps you know it and like it and just want to have another listen.  Well, for this post, I am strongly encouraging you to listen to this track from Josh Ritter's 2015 release Sermon on the Rocks.  Part of the joy of the lyrics lies in Ritter's rapid-fire delivery and the urge to "get down."  Seriously, listen to the song.  You won't be sorry.

Josh Ritter has become one of my favorite songwriters.  I never met a Josh Ritter song that I didn't like.  And seeing him live is on my bucket list.  The man is a poet.  And, like any good poet, Ritter will make you question your interpretations of what this life is supposed to be about.  Although it would be easy to write this song off as irreverent, I would argue with that assessment.  In the mode of Emerson, Thoreau, and especially Whitman, Ritter simply invites you to consider another point of view in regard to Biblical dictums and societal conventions.

"Getting Ready to Get Down" tells a story of a young woman whose behavior has worried her parents enough that they, at the preacher's suggestion, send her off to a Bible college in the Midwest.  Four years later, she returns home, but it is obvious that the parents' plan backfired.  She is ready to get down!

Ritter's songs, while sometimes critical of the Christian mindset, are also a celebration of the language and stories contained within the Bible.  It is not the Bible that he takes issue with; it's the often erroneous interpretations that have become cemented into the American psyche.  Certainly true of this song, its story demands that you rethink "the body as a temple for the Holy Spirit."  Mainline American Christianity sets the flesh against the spirit.  (I was raised Catholic. I know well the message that was delivered over and over again regarding sexuality, and that message was reinforced in a teenage culture of slut-shaming.)  But there is an alternative philosophy that claims that the body and soul are one.  "American sensual spirituality" would posit that, rather than seek the divine outside of ourselves (and particularly outside of our bodies), we might instead recognize the spiritual connection between body and soul.  Eve ate the apple 'cause the apple was sweet.

Whether or not you appreciate Ritter's suggested rethinking of our cultural mores, I think you will have a hard time not bopping along to the song.  And I cannot close this post without including perhaps my favorite line from it:

Turn your other cheek and take no chances / Jesus hates your high school dances.

Quiet Your Mind

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/rHK21cm_h1A

It's hard sometimes, I know, when you try to close your eyes
And put yourself into a dream, and waking, so disguise
But sleeping, and then dreaming, means that you are truly free
It's the best thing that you can do, as far as I can see

Oh . . . quiet your mind

~  Great Lake Swimmers

I did not sleep well this past weekend, and I suspect I am not alone in that.  The Inauguration and the March, the dread and hope, the depression and exhilaration all conspired to keep my wheels turning into and throughout the nights.  And then the added task of trying to sort through facts and alternative facts?  I was just exhausted!

But last night, I slept like a rock!  (Although now I have to wonder if rocks really sleep . . . or is that just an alternative fact?)  I think it might have been the longest and deepest sleep I have had in a very long time, and this morning, I feel great!  And I am grateful.  Even though I am puzzled by this surprise reprieve from carrying the weight of the world, I am welcoming the rest.

I have tried many things to allow my mind to relax.  Yoga, meditation, mindfulness . . . but they end up being things that I pretend to do.  I even went to a yoga retreat in Costa Rica a couple of years ago where, yes, I pretended to do yoga.  I am not by any means knocking these disciplines; I am just mourning the fact that my mind just can't seem to get it.  I don't know how to turn off the static.

But there is one thing that brings me close to that peace.  "Quiet Your Mind," from the 2012 release New Wild Everywhere by Great Lake Swimmers, has the gentle power of slowing me down, cleaning the slate, softening the noise.  It is my go-to sedative, my own personal sandman.  Tony Dekkar's soothing voice, along with Miranda Mulholland's backing vocals and violin, can lull me into a Zen-like dreamstate.  I go there willingly.

I know I need a break from current affairs.  No, I'm not abandoning ship; I will still do my best everyday to live the politics I espouse.  But I'm going to try to be quiet in my head for a little while.  Maybe I'm conserving energy for the mission ahead, or maybe I'm copping out.  Either way, my mind is going on vacation.  Perhaps you will notice in my choice of lyrics coming up.  Let's see how long this lasts.

So now I'll send a lullaby and wrap it in a dream
To take the weight from your shoulders and the pressure from your teeth
It must seem like a ghost sometimes appearing from thin air
So take hold of this quiet song, that the night will find you there

Oh . . . quiet your mind

Surrender Under Protest

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/7Nf5uWB6xgc

From the comfort zone of history
On the lips of trusted loved ones
To the lonely, fragile minds of angry youth
No sooner was it over
Than the memory made it nobler
The selective means by which to point the view

Compelled, but not defeated
Surrender under protest if you must

~  Drive By Truckers

On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist, killed nine black parishioners at a church in Charleston, SC.  Captured the next day, Roof stated that he wanted to start a race war.  Largely because of this murder, the Confederate battle flag was removed from the South Carolina Statehouse.

"Surrender Under Protest," on the 2016 American Band release, was, in part, inspired by this American tragedy.  The catchphrase, "surrender under pressure," originally belonged to those defending the "Lost Cause," the view that the Confederate Army was as heroic as the Union Army.  Drive By Truckers is a Southern band; they are very familiar with the fixated Confederate attitude that has remained in parts of the South ever since the War Between the States.  The song points to those unable to abandon tradition even when the sin at its root has been recognized and denounced.

I grew up in a predominantly white small town in the Northeast.  There were a handful of black families in town, and as much as I can remember, we did not subject them to any discrimination.  Pete, Tony, Leila, Karen, Chuck . . . all were popular and well-liked.  But it is possible that they suffered racial bias of which I was simply unaware.  My memory of these families came front and center when I went to see Hidden Figures, the movie about three black women who played a pivotal role in the NASA Space Program at the same time that I was going to school with the handful of black kids in my town.  The story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson is an important chapter in our history, but of course, I knew nothing about them until I saw the movie.  "Black History" was simply not a thing when I was a teenager.

But I knew about the space program.  I have autographed pictures of Alan B. Shepherd and John Glenn, the result of my obsession to write letters to famous people before I discovered boys.  John Glenn's orbit around the earth in 1962 is an important part of the Hidden Figures story.  The discrimination against blacks that is highlighted in the story is not new to me, but I found myself, nonetheless, shocked at the shame of it.  That the tradition of "colored" bathrooms went unquestioned and unchallenged, even at an intellectual institution such as NASA, disturbed me as if I were learning about it for the first time.  But haven't we gotten past this by now?

Of course, the answer is no, we have not.  If we had, nine black parishioners would not have died due to the lonely, fragile minds of angry youth.  It seems that the ugly curse of racism has risen again, encouraged by an American dialogue that marginalizes the "other," and recently, that has found a new leader who chooses not to put forth an argument against bigotry, but instead, normalizes it.

After I sorted out my reactions to the movie, I wondered about how a younger generation would respond to it.  Would they be as appalled as I was at the blatant discrimination?  Or would they dismiss that old piece of history as if it no longer has any bearing on our society?  "Those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  (George Santayana)

So much for the comfort zone of history.

The Comin' Round is Going Through

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/knATDt8_G5U

Just look around, things are startin' to slip
You're outta control, and you're losin' your grip
No way to stop it, that river's spillin' over for good
We don't have the answer; we know what it's not
'Cause the people will keep pushin' 'til they get a shot
Your money's no good there; we wouldn't cash you a check if we could

~  Bonnie Raitt

Yesterday's Women's March on Washington spilled over . . . into history.  There were sister marches in 650 places around the world.  Millions of women and men peacefully protested by gathering and marching while untold millions more cheered them on from home.  I claim representation by my daughters with their participation in Washington DC and New York City.  I was absolutely giddy with joy when I read the newspapers and online accounts of the event this morning.  We do have a voice.  And it's a peaceful voice.  By the end of the day, there was not one single arrest reported.

Reading the lyrics above, one might assume that Bonnie Raitt wrote this song about our new administration.  That would be wrong.  She penned the song in February 2016, months before the candidates were selected and the election was held.  The song was more a reaction, born of frustration, to Citizens United and the uneven distribution of wealth in this country.  "I wanted to write a song about how pissed off I was about money being in politics and how much lying and puffing up and no accounting for the truth goes on in our political process," Raitt stated in an interview.

And since that interview, things have only become more imbalanced.  The 17 new Cabinet picks have a combined income of $9.5 billion.  That amount is greater than that of the 43 million least wealthy households.  There's something very wrong with this picture.

While the Women's March was not primarily focused on wealth or lack thereof, many of the issues that motivated the protest were wallet issues:  affordable health care, the discrepancy between average pay for men and average pay for women, and tax fairness, among others.  And clearly, these are issues that affect us all, liberal and conservative, black and white, religious and secular, young and old, male and female.  In regard to the song being an out and out rocker, Raitt said, "I deliberately framed it so that it could be anybody's political spectrum -- whether they're progressive or Tea Party, they're still mad that the system is broken."

This would only be Raitt's second protest song.  Her 1994 release, Hell to Pay, also references the theme of "what goes around comes around." Raitt sings about politicians who stack up bad karma against themselves, for which they will eventually pay.

Only so long can you keep this charade
Until they wake up and see they've been played
Too many people with their livin' at stake
Ain't gonna take it
Comin' round is going through

You tell 'em, Bonnie.

Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves

Listen while you read:  https://youtu.be/drGx7JkFSp4

Now this is a song to celebrate

The conscious liberation of the female state!

Mothers, daughters, and their daughters, too

Woman to woman, we're singin' with you

The "inferior sex" got a new exterior

We got doctors, lawyers, politicians, too

Everybody -- take a look around

Can you see?  Can you see?  Can you see?

There's a woman right next to you

~  The Eurythmics

(My son suggested that I include a link to a youtube video of the songs so my followers can listen while they read.  So if that floats your boat, go for it!  Thanks, Sam!)

Today is the Women's March on Washington.  I'm dedicating this post to my daughters and to my son and to all the women and men who will be marching for women's rights and in protest of the new administration and its threats to women's health care, among other issues.  Katrina will be traveling from North Carolina to Washington DC to march, while Jenna will march in New York City.  Needless to say, I am proud of my daughters.

This 1985 Eurythmics song was written by Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, who make up the duo.  The link to the video will treat you to a rollicking performance by Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin.  Three members of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers -- Mike Campbell on guitar, Benmont Tench on organ, and Stan Lynch on drums -- provide a get-up-and-dance feel to the tune.  It is, after all, "a song to celebrate."  The truth is, many of us don't feel too celebratory as of late, but perhaps this gathering of feminists will inspire us to believe again in hope and change.

It may be that I have come about my feminism naturally.  Or maybe not.  My mother, a smart and autonomous woman, served in the U.S. Coast Guard during WWII.  She achieved the rank of Chief Yeoman, outranking my father (U.S. Army) in the process.  After the war, she raised three children while also working outside the home.  Widowed young, she took on home maintenance projects with grit and guts.  Was she a feminist?  She would say no.  And I would agree with that.  Despite her independence and strength, she still believed that men were somehow superior to women.  Her indulgence toward my brother compared to her treatment of my sister and me would support that belief.  I am not faulting her; she was a product of a different generation.  And yet, her feisty self-sufficiency was not lost on me.

As for my daughters, I would like to think that they came upon their feminism naturally, and not just from their mother.  Their father was unashamedly proud to call himself a feminist.  Although we sometimes fell into traditional male/female roles, we were equal partners in our marriage.  And while Pete could make a great French toast, I built our coffee table.  

The other day, I read my friend Wally Lamb's latest novel I'll Take You There.  It's a great read, one that illustrates "the feminine ideals and feminist realities that all women, of every era, must face."  In thanks to Wally and in honor of all the women and men marching, I will offer this gem from the novel, a quote credited to the Taiwanese-American stand-up comic Sheng Wang:  Why do people say 'grow some balls'?  Balls are weak and sensitive.  If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina.  Those things can take a pounding.

Darkness, Darkness

Darkness, Darkness, be my pillow
Take my head and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep

Darkness, Darkness, hide my yearning
For the things that cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning
Towards the things I cannot see now

~  Jesse Colin Young

If you are unfamiliar with this song and want to look for it online, you can search for the most well-known version by The Youngbloods, recorded in 1969.  But you can also pick from recordings by Mott the Hoople (1971), Bruce Springsteen (1972), Ian Matthews (1976), Eric Burden (1980), Richie Havens (1994), Richard Shindell (1997), Robert Plant (2002) or Cowboy Junkies (2004).  And there are more.  I guess that makes it a popular song, wouldn't you say?

Often described as an "anthem for doomed youth," the song was written by Young after  a sleepless night which he spent thinking about his friends who were in Viet Nam.  So much music from that era was a reaction to the war that many of us felt was wrong.  I remember well the division in our country over that war.  I did not foresee that we would experience a division more profound than that in the future, but here we are.

When we consider darkness and light as opposites, we intuitively feel light as good and darkness as bad.  But remember Hippolytus from a previous post?  The road up and the road down are the same thing.  Look at the lyrics again.  In the first verse, we are awash in comforting words:  pillow, sleep, coolness, shadow, silence, deep.  Darkness is the pacifier that calms us, the escape from our troubles and fears.  The verse is a prayer.  It asks only for comfort.

The agitation that is presented in the second verse interrupts that comfort.  The remorse over the way of the world, the unrest in the mind, the uncertainty of the future . . . even darkness cannot obliterate the discontent that is the human condition.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.  It has been very hard . . . no, it has been impossible . . . to not let this blog become a political microphone.  In my contemplation over what song to choose for this day, January 20, 2017, I considered lyrics that were satirical, lyrics that were peaceful, lyrics that were funny, lyrics that had absolutely nothing to do with the event of the day.  I kept coming back to darkness, not even entirely understanding why.  And then I came upon the news that the new administration is considering elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as privatization of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  PEN America, an association of literary writers and editors, denounced the alleged proposed cuts as a sign of a "new Dark Ages" in America.  "The announcement that this is even under consideration casts a sinister cloud over our vibrant national culture."

Darkness.

Darkness, Darkness, long and lonesome
Ease the day that brings me pain.

Eve of Destruction

My blood's so mad, feels like coagulatin'
I'm sitting here just contemplatin'
I can't twist the truth; it knows no regulation
Handful of senators don't pass legislation
And marches alone can't bring integration
When human respect is disintegratin'
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'

And you tell me over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe we're on the eve of destruction

~ P. F. Sloan

Pay no attention to the timing of this song title.  Whoa!  My tongue just got caught in my cheek!  Okay, I got it.  I'm good to go now.

Those of you who know this 1965 hit song might be surprised to see that Barry McGuire, who recorded the song, did not write it.  P. F. Sloan wrote it in mid-1964 at the age of nineteen.  Distressed about the state of the world, he wrote it as a prayer to God as well as "a love song to and for humanity."  He naively believed that the song might start a conversation between government and the people.  Instead, the song was met with great resistance because of its "anti-government" lyrics.  Many radio stations refused to play it, and the media claimed that the song would frighten little children.  Sloan was banned from all national television shows, and within a year, he was driven out of the music business.  As a result, he suffered from depression for 20 - 25 years and was hospitalized at one point.  He did continue to write songs and along with Steve Barri formed The Grass Roots.  P. F. Sloan died in November 2015 at the age of 70.

In a pathetic attempt at backlash, several songs were recorded to "answer" Eve of Destruction, including The Dawn of Correction by The Spokesmen, Dawn of Instruction by The Jayhawkers (not to be confused with my beloved Jayhawks), Eve of Tomorrow by Tony Mammarella, and Day for Decision by Johnny Sea.  All big hits, right?

I was a sophomore in high school when Eve of Destruction came out.  I can remember trying to memorize the lyrics by listening to my little transistor radio under my pillow at night.  (Remember, this was pre-Google.  Hell, it was pre-Internet, pre-computer, pretty much pre-everything that we take for granted today.)  I don't remember how many times I had to wait for the song to play in order to be able to get all the lyrics written down, but I do remember having to look up the word coagulating.  And I'm pretty sure I was excited about the song.

But here's where memory fails me.  Somewhere along the line, I drank the Kool-Aid and decided that this song . . . in fact, all protest songs . . . should be abolished.  I guess I was absent the day Freedom of Speech was covered in history class.  Anyway, in English class, we were learning how to debate.  (Yes, there were actually rules and protocol and civility expected in debates back then.)  I don't remember who my partner or my opponents were, but somehow, I made the case that the song should be outlawed and "won" the debate.  This memory is one that makes me wish I could go back in time and change something.

Of course, this was 1965, still the beginning of what we now refer to as "The Sixties."  Attitudes and actions, along with music, dress, and hairstyles, changed pretty rapidly as the decade progressed, and by 1969, I was a bonafide hippie, protesting the war and patching my bell-bottom bluejeans with peace, love, and understanding.

You're old enough to kill, but not for votin'.  Eve of Destruction is credited with boosting momentum for passage of the 26th Amendment in 1971, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.  Too late for me; I turned 21 that year.  And now, 46 years later, when human respect is disintegrating, my blood is still so mad, feels like coagulating.  This whole crazy world is just too frustrating.

I hope you've found peace, P. F. Sloan.

The Dangling Conversation

And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost

Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time

And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
Are the borders of our lives

~ Paul Simon

Simon and Garfunkel recorded this beauty in September 1966, but it was never a hit for them.  And given that the song is now over a half century old, some of you may not know the song at all.  If that is true for you, go on and google it now and give it a listen.  Seriously, go.

Wait.  Did I say a half century old?  Talk about measuring what we've lost . . .

The song is written in three parts.  I struggled with choosing which lyrics to post and considered including the entire song.  I settled on the middle verse, most likely for its reference to poetry, something about which I have always been passionate.  Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost were household names, at least in houses where people knew what poetry was.  I cannot read Robert Frost without recalling that cold and sunny day, January 20, 1961 (less than six years before Dangling Conversation was written!) when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was inaugurated.  Frost had written a new poem for the occasion titled Dedication, but he hadn't had time to memorize the poem.  In trying to read it, he was blinded by the bright sun on the snowy Capitol grounds and could not get past the third line.  The fact that he was 86 at the time might have been a factor, too.  It was Richard Nixon who offered his top hat to shield the papers from the glare, but Frost ended up reciting from memory a different poem, The Gift Outright.

I was not quite eleven at the time, and I was a big fan of the Kennedys.  Memory tells me that we had a "snow day" in northern New Jersey that day, allowing us to watch the Inauguration in our living rooms.  Although I can not verify this part, I recall Frost's papers being taken by the wind.  Whether it is real or not, that image has stayed with me all these years.

But I digress.  And maybe for good reason.  The Dangling Conversation is a painful song.  Simply put, it is about failed communication between lovers.  The beauty and gentleness and civility with which the distance between them is illustrated only serves to make the scene sadder.  They are indeed verses out of rhythm and couplets out of rhyme.  The relationship, like the conversation, is dangling, perhaps hanging by a thread?

The borders of our lives.  Are they borders that protect us?  Or borders that hold us back?  In his well-known poem, Mending Wall, on the competing needs of security and freedom, Frost writes:

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence,
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.

Do you see what I did there?  I connected the song with a poet and with an Inauguration and with a wall!  (Three more days . . . ) And therein is the secret to relationships:  connecting.  No dangling.  Just strong connection.  We'll get there, I hope.

True Sadness

'Cause I still wake up shaken by dreams
And I hate to say it, but the way that it seems
Is that no one is fine
Take the time to peel a few layers and you will find
True sadness

~ The Avett Brothers

I've been chalking it up to some bad juju in the atmosphere.  The last couple of weeks have just been too full of emotional upheaval.  So many friends and loved ones are hurting right now, and their pain becomes mine.  That's what love does.  I have always acknowledged the ancient Law of Duality (or, as I learned it years ago, "the Duality of Opposites").  Simplistically, duality posits that in order to know pain, one must know pleasure.  In order to know joy, one must know sorrow.  In order to know love, one must know the absence of love.  Taoism further suggests that within every independent entity lies a part of its opposite.  These emotions are not independent of one another, but rather a variation of the same unifying force throughout all of nature.  The road up and the road down are the same thing. ~ Hippolytus

Are you still with me?

The combination of the words true and sadness, though not words that are opposite in meaning, led me to a contemplation of dualism.  The word true calls up positive energy.  Truth is a force of good.  Sadness, on the other hand, strikes us as an undesirable condition.  "Why so sad?  Cheer up!"  ( I have an overwhelming urge to strike out when someone says this to me.  Am I alone in that?)  So I find the concept of true sadness compelling, and further thought leads me to an understanding and acceptance of the sadness within us all.  To be sad implies that one has known happiness, so perhaps it is beneficial to embrace the sadness, give it truth, and learn from it. Seth Avett said in an interview, "The phrase is speaking along the lines of viewing the life experience with some evenness.  Sadness is always there, and it's all right -- it outlines something that had to happen."

Like so many of my friends and loved ones, I find myself feeling sad today.  The circumstances causing our sadness are as varied as those that would provide us joy.  My plan is to accept the heaviness in my heart, be mindful of others' pain, and do what I can to find that balance between joy and sorrow.

I write these posts a day before publishing them, so I am writing this on January 16.  While doing so, my good friend Jeannine, having no idea that I was writing this, sent me a message.  "Heard on the news that today is considered the saddest day of the year."  Seriously.  I'm not kidding.  I looked it up, and sure enough, today is designated Blue Monday.  The date is calculated using a series of factors in a mathematical formula.  The factors include weather, debt level, amount of time since Christmas, the time since failing our New Year's resolutions, low motivational levels, and the feeling of a need to take charge of the situation.  In other words, bad juju!  The coincidence of my selecting this song without even knowing that it's the saddest day of the year has given me a chuckle, so I am truly taking charge of the situation!  Here's to True Sadness and the smile it put on my face!

Shed a Little Light

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King
And recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the earth
Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together
in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong
We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead
We are bound and we are bound

~ James Taylor

For those of us at a certain age, there are questions guaranteed to jumpstart any conversation.  "Do you remember where you were when you learned that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot?" is probably the most popular.  (Perhaps the modern equivalent is "Do you remember where you were on 9/11?")  The Sixties provided a couple more opportunities to stoke our rusty memories:  "What were you doing when you learned of Robert Kennedy's assassination?" and "What were you doing when you learned of Martin Luther King's assassination?"  How sad that these memory-joggers involve national tragedies, and for those of us coming up in the Sixties, there are three assassinations.

Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968.  Where was I?  At home in my living room.  What was I doing?  Talking on the phone.  How did I react to it?  Here's where it gets a little foggy.  I was 18 years old, only two months away from my high school graduation.  I had a boyfriend and a driver's license and an acceptance to college.  Was I appropriately devastated by this terrible event?  Probably not.  Whether my reaction was built of weariness over the state of affairs or some heady self-indulgence over the turns my future was about to take, I can't recall.  But I know that I did not give this tragedy the gravity it deserved.  And, yes, I am ashamed to admit that.

James Taylor released his 13th studio album, New Moon Shine on September 24, 1991.  The first time I heard Shed a Little Light, I was moved.  And I have been moved every time I have heard it since.  For me, the most powerful performance of the song took place in July of 2015 in Columbia SC with Taylor being backed by the Charleston Choir.  (Link to the video provided below.)  In his introduction to the song, he references the tragedy at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston on June 17, 2015, in which then-21-year-old Dylann Roof, a white supremacist wanting to start a race war, killed nine members of the church.  A remorseless Roof was sentenced earlier this month to death.

There is a feeling like the clenching of a fist
There is a hunger in the center of the chest
There is a passage through the darkness and the mist
And though the body sleeps, the heart will never rest

Please find your own way to honor Dr. Martin Luther King today.

http://people.com/celebrity/james-taylor-performs-shed-a-little-light-with-charleston-choir/

Kathleen

All the other girls here are stars
You are the Northern Lights
They try to shine through your curtains
You're too close and too bright
They try and they try but everything that they do
Is the ghost of a pale imitation of you
I'll be the one to drive you back home, Kathleen

~ Josh Ritter

This post is a happy birthday tribute to my best friend.  Anyone who knows Kathy would agree with the first two lines of this gorgeous Josh Ritter song.  Kathy shines with her kindness, her generosity, her compassion, and her loyalty.  Oh, I could go on and on with laudatory descriptions of the person Kathy is, but suffice it to say that she is one of the best human beings I have ever known.  So happy birthday, Kathy!

When I was googling for the lyrics to this song, I kept finding links to the old Irish ballad, I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen, most notably recorded by Bing Crosby in 1952.  There seems to be a similarity, at least regarding the idea of taking someone named Kathleen home.  Although "home" in the old song would appear to be Ireland (ancestral home of my friend Kathy), as it turns out, that is a misconception.  The song was written by Thomas P. Westendorf in 1875 for his wife Jennie, and "home" was Germany!  Whatever, the song still works as a beloved Irish ballad.

But back to Josh Ritter's beautiful song, Kathleen.  The song appears on Ritter's 2003 "divorce record," The Beast in Its Tracks.  Ritter had just gone through a painful divorce and returned to songwriting as a healing act.  The treatment seemed to work, as by the time of the record's release, Josh had a new girlfriend.  Mother Jones called the album The Cheeriest Breakup Album Ever.    Kathleen tells the story of a young woman at a party being offered a ride home by the protagonist.  Clearly, she is out of his league, but she accepts the ride.  He revels in the memory.  One of the lines that makes me smile is this one:  So crawl up your trellis and quietly back into your room.  I've lost count of the stories Kathy has told me about her badass teenage years when she would regularly sneak out of her room and head to the bars.  I'm a few years older than Kathy, a product of a more rigid time, so I never snuck out of my room, and I never hung out at a bar until I was of legal age (which, at the time, was only 18 in neighboring New York state).  But I can't help but wonder if I would have been sneaking out with Kathy if we had known each other growing up.  I suspect I would have.

Every heart is a package tangled up in knots someone else tied.  This line, near the end of the song, demands contemplation.  Our hearts are not designed to be isolated.  They plead for interaction, for connection, for reassurance.  Call it love.  If the connections get tangled up, is that a good or bad thing?  Could be either, I suppose.  In this case, I would like to think that the ribbons that have tied my heart to Kathy's will never be loosened.  I love you, Kath.  You are as awesome as the Northern Lights.

Mr. Tambourine Man

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow

~ Bob Dylan

So whose version is playing in your head?  Bob Dylan's?  Or The Byrds'?  Just please don't tell me William Shatner's!  Take a minute to read the lyrics again and focus on rhyme.  Somewhat unpredictable, yes?  But there's no doubt that the driving force of these lyrics is imagery.  I hope there are pictures in your mind.

Dylan wrote this song in February 1964 after celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  It appeared on Bringing It All Back Home in 1965.  Shortly thereafter, The Byrds recorded it, and their version stands as the only song Dylan ever wrote that went to #1 in America.  Despite popular belief, Dylan claims the song is not about drugs.  (I know, I know, they all say that.)  He recalls musician Bruce Langhorne, who carried a tambourine "as big as a wagon wheel" around Greenwich Village.  Dylan says the image of Bruce and his tambourine stuck in his head.  Roger McGuinn (who was still known as Jim McGuinn when The Byrds recorded the song) had his own interpretation of the lyrics.  "Underneath the lyrics to Mr. Tambourine Man, regardless of what Dylan meant, I was turning it into a prayer . . . I was singing to God and I was saying that God was the Tambourine Man, and I was saying to him, 'Hey, God, take me for a trip and I'll follow you.'"

A firm believer in the Rumi adage, There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground, I can buy McGuinn's interpretation of the song as a prayer.  I am not the only one.  These lyrics were suggested to me by a close friend.  When I asked him why, he had this to say:

It just touches me.  Personally.  Internally.  I cannot hear (or even read) the line 'to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free' without my chest tightening and tears involuntarily coming to my eyes.  An image of a jubilant, ecstatic, carefree dancer on a starlit beach, completely free of any 'crazy sorrow' just makes my heart soar with joy.  A momentary escape from life's trials and tribulations?

Well, we sure could use an escape these days, couldn't we?  On my drive home from the park this morning, I listened to a song by Will Courtney about the current state of music and filed away these lyrics:  Where was the phrase that gives you a lift? / Or the chilling ways a guitarist played a rift? / I remember the days when bands could make you cry.

Me, too.  And this is one of those songs.

Werewolves of London

If you hear him howling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again

~ Warren Zevon

This former English teacher was a big fan of Warren Zevon.  (I even had a cat named Zevon.)  And when it came time to teach poetic devices in Creative Writing, Warren was there to help me out.  Okay, POP QUIZ!!!  What poetic device is illustrated in the lines above?  Take your time.  I'll wait.

Okay, if you said rhythm or rhyme, I could not mark you wrong.  But the answer I am looking for is (as my former students reading this know) ALLITERATION!

Pay attention to the "L"s:  Little old lady got mutilated late last night.  Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words close together.  Think tongue twisters.

Bonus points if you found ASSONANCE, the repetition of vowel sounds in words close together.  Notice the long a in lady, mutilated, and late.

Okay, class dismissed.

Werewolves of London was the only Warren Zevon song to make the Top 40. How sad is that?  And it still has life, especially around Halloween.  But Warren was much more prolific than that.  Poor, Poor Pitiful Me.  Excitable Boy.  And so many others.  His last CD before he died in 2003, The Wind, contains some beauties that will break your heart.  Warren was a beloved friend of David Letterman.  In one guest appearance before his death, David asked Warren if he had any advice to share.  Warren's response is classic:  Enjoy every sandwich.  (That phrase became the title of a collection of Warren Zevon covers released in 2004.)

As for werewolves, also known as man-wolves or lycanthropes, they are shapeshifters, able to change from man to wolf either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction.  Once again, I am drawn to the current political climate, especially when considering that Nazi Germany used Werwolf (the German spelling) in 1942-43 as the codename for one of Hitler's headquarters.  I think there's a picture of Hitler holding a Chinese menu in his hand while there.

Wow, I just realized that as I am writing this post, there's a full moon!  A-hooooo!

Kodachrome

They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summer
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So, Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away

~ Paul Simon

If this song is familiar to you, you will certainly recall the opening line:  When I think back to all the crap I learned in high school . . .   Having had a 30-year career as a high school English teacher, that line does make me cringe a bit.  While I don't dispute that there is likely a lot of "crap" being taught, I'd also like to think that everything I taught was meaningful.  "All great literature is about what it means to be human," said my colleague and friend JoAnn.  And I had the opportunity to teach great literature.  I choose to believe that it made a difference.

But on to the lines quoted above.  I was always taken by the idea that we tend to record our lives in sunny days.  Ever the optimists, we take advantage of the blue skies and bright sun to get out our cameras (or now, our phones) and click away.  Or maybe this was more true back in the dark ages, when we had to pay for our Kodachrome film and then pay to have it developed.  If there were only 12 pictures per roll of film, there was no desire to waste them on cloudy days.  Hell, I'm old enough to remember when color film was a luxury.  Although Kodachrome was invented in the mid-30s, most of the photographs I have from the 50s and 60s are in black and white.

The Wizard of Oz movie was produced in 1939.  When I was growing up, it was broadcast on television every year, sometime in April.  I never missed it.  Although I cannot remember when my family switched from a black and white TV to a color set, I know that, through many years of watching the film, I had no idea that the movie is not in color until Dorothy lands in Oz.  It was all Kansas to me.

Twenty miles southeast of Bryce Canyon in Utah is another red-rocked nirvana, the Kodachrome Basin.  State Park literature states, "The color and beauty found here prompted a National Geographic Society expedition to name the area Kodachrome, after the popular film, in 1948."  Although it always seemed to be too commercial a name for a natural area, I understand the reasoning.  There will come a day, I suppose, when the history of the name will be lost on visitors, especially since Kodachrome film was retired in 2009 after 74 years.

When Paul Simon sings this song, he often switches the last line around.  Sometimes it's Everything looks worse in black and white, and sometimes it's Everything looks better in black and white.  He claims that he doesn't remember which way he originally wrote it.  I guess it's all a matter of perspective.  And you get to decide.

Bathtub Gin

Here comes the Joker
with his silly grin
He carries a martini
made of bathtub gin

Here comes the Joker
We all must laugh
'Cause we're all in this together
and we love to take a bath

~ Phish

So.  I'm housebound today while Bathfitter installs my new shower.  Seemed like a good idea to find a song lyric about bathing or showering.  I considered Little Feat's Fat Man in the Bathtub, but as much as I love all things Lowell George, I wasn't inspired to blog about it.  So I turned to Google and found Phish's Bathtub Gin.  (Oddly enough, Phish also did a cover of Fat Man in the Bathtub.)  And once again, I am amused by the temptation to apply the events of the day to the lyrics.  Is it coincidence that Mark Hamill recently recorded some of Donald Trump's tweets in the voice of The Joker?

Phish played three nights at Bethel Woods (site of Woodstock) back in 2011, so I may have heard them do this song.  Trey Anastasio has to be the happiest guy in rock and roll; the man cannot stop smiling while he is playing!  Such joy!  One of the reasons my son chose the University of Vermont in Burlington is because that's where Trey and Mike Gordon got together and formed Phish.  Despite that questionable motivation, Sam got an excellent education at UVM.

But back to the song.  Bathtub gin is a term born in the 1920s during Prohibition.  It refers to any kind of homemade spirits.  It may have resulted from the fact that the bottles of booze, which needed to be topped off with water, were too tall for the kitchen sink and needed to be finished from the bathtub faucet.  Or maybe it was the fact that, in order to supply larger establishments with the illegal alcohol, the distillers needed to be discreet in order to avoid detection by police.  The common metal bathtub was small enough to escape notice, but big enough to produce large quantities.  I find it humorous that one would drink a martini, a drink associated with "the elites," made from bathtub gin!  But we do live in a culture of knock-off purses and cubic zirconia bling, don't we?

'Cause we're all in this together and we love to take a bath.  As in "suffer a heavy financial loss"?  Fasten your seat belts!  Inauguration Day is only ten days away!

Before the Deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
By and by . . . 
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky

~ Jackson Browne

Wow, ten posts in and I'm just getting around to a Jackson Browne song?  It won't be the last.  Jackson Browne is, hands down, my favorite lyricist.  I got to tell him that once when I spoke to him at Levon Helm's Barn in Woodstock NY.  Levon had recently died, and Jackson was doing a benefit concert to help keep the Barn in business.  Margaret and I sat in the front row; I was directly across from Jackson as he sat at his piano.  At one point, he stared at me as if he were looking into my soul.  (I have witnesses.)

Before the Deluge appears on the 1974 release Late for the Sky.  Can this song really be over 40 years old?  As with so many songs that have captured my attention in the last few months, this one could easily have been just written.

Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future

Well, there's the 2016 election in one of many nutshells.  We all vote with an eye toward the future, or at least toward our very own personal future.  Dreamers?  Fools?  I don't think it's one or the other, even though our polarized population might think so.

While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts, they turned to each other's heart for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

Time speeds by while we work to acquire all that we think we need to live.  And of course, none of it is as important as love and security and peace.  John Lennon tried to tell us this many years ago:  All you need is love.  Well, that and a good craft beer.  We'll probably need that if the "troubled years" last very long.

Box of Rain

Look out of any window
Any morning, any evening, any day
Maybe the sun is shining
Birds are winging, no rain is falling from a heavy sky
What do you want me to do
To do for you to see you through?
For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago

~ Robert Hunter

Yesterday's post began and ended with lyrics by Norah Jones.  Specifically, there was this:  Who knows, maybe it's all a dream.  I'd like to continue with the dream theme today, if for no other reason than to highlight one of my favorite lines ever:  For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago.

It's hard to pick a favorite Grateful Dead song, but Box of Rain, which was included on 1970's American Beauty (perhaps my favorite Grateful Dead album) has to be way up there at the top of the list.  Robert Hunter has an innate talent for songwriting.  Phil Lesh had given him some music, wanting to create something in honor of his dad, who was dying.  Hunter delivered.  In regard to the title, Hunter said, "By 'box of rain,' I meant the world we live on, but 'ball' of rain didn't have the right ring to my ear, so 'box' it became, and I don't know who put it there."

But back to the dreaming.  First of all, let me say that I love the words we use to divvy up the day:  dawn, morning, afternoon, twilight, dusk, evening, nightfall.  Whenever I encounter one of these words, my mind illustrates the time of day with sunlight, shadows, moonlight, and moods.  Extremely evocative for me.  So to refer to dreaming in the afternoon (as opposed to night, when we are typically dreaming) not only shakes up my everyday perceptions, but also provides a vision and a mood.  It's kind of lazy, peaceful, and other-worldly.  And to further poke my rational mind, Hunter tells me that it was a dream from long ago.  When?  In another life?  I can employ the willing suspension of disbelief and buy that.

And that provokes much larger questions, ones that involve reincarnation, past lives, and a spiritual sensitivity to possibility.  Are we only living in a dream?  I was always taken by the idea that this human life is not real, but our dreaming life is.  And if that's true, you know we're all in trouble!  Or maybe not.  Maybe our dream worlds are devoid of human stress and angst.  Nice thought.

And it's just a box of rain, I don't know who put it there
Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare
And it's just a box of rain or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there

My Dear Country

 . . . nothing is as scary as Election Day

But the day after is darker
And darker and darker it goes
Who knows, maybe the plans will change
Who knows, maybe he's not deranged

~ Norah Jones

Norah Jones wrote My Dear Country in 2004, her response to John Kerry's loss to George W. Bush.  In revisiting the song today, two months after Election Day 2016, I could not help myself.  Some of you will see the parallels; others will deny them.  My intention here is not to start a political argument.  But darkness does seem to be pervading our lives these days, no matter which side you lean toward.  I often feel like I am living inside a Harry Potter novel with the Forces of Evil shrouding the atmosphere.  Two days ago, Evil struck very close to home for me with the killings at Fort Lauderdale International Airport, a mere 40 minute drive south.  I have flown into and out of that airport many times.  There but for fortune . . .

But Russia.  I cannot see it from my window, but I remember well being taught to despise the "Commies" as a child growing up during the Cold War years.  In my mind's eye, I can still picture a scene in my living room, my parents watching intently as the black and white console TV informed us of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  We had a pseudo fallout shelter prepared in our basement, canned goods lining a shelf in preparation for our survival during WWIII.  Children were scared during this period, most especially during the air raid drills enacted at our schools.  "Duck and cover" in my school meant cramming as many children as possible into the space under the stairwell, behind the yellow rubber safety patrol raincoats.  (I can still smell that rubber.)  We tried to pretend it was all a game, but deep inside, we were scared.

And I, like many, am scared today.  Do not insult us for not "moving on" or "getting over it."  I try to focus on the Russian people, who may be as frightened as I am.  I call up Sting's song Russians and these lines:  We share the same biology / Regardless of ideology / What might save us, me and you / Is if the Russians love their children, too.  And I have no doubt that they do.  But their government has overstepped, and our response to that interference in our democracy must be addressed carefully.  I, for one, would feel much better if a calmer and smarter head was going to be in charge of those responses.  Preferably responses that were not delivered via Twitter.

A Horse with No Name

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain

~ America

Okay, I never said my choices would be restricted to GOOD lyrics, did I?  My nomination for worst line ever written is 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain.  There are so many things wrong with that line, I wouldn't know where to begin.  Yes, I find that line worse even than Someone left the cake out in the rain (from McArthur Park).  How odd that those two lines rhyme!  Coincidence?

But I'm not here to bitch about that bad line.  Dewey Bunnell was only 19 when he wrote the song.  I know his type . . . he slept through English class for four years, then woke up to song-writing.  All is forgiven, Dewey.

Dewey was an Army brat living in England and wrote what he originally titled Desert Song after a visit to the California desert.  Although the contemporary wisdom in 1972, when the song made the charts here, is that "horse" is slang for "heroin" and that the song is about drugs, Dewey says that's not true.  He insists that "horse" represents a means of entering a place of tranquility, and this tranquil place was best represented by the desert.

Now I would not disagree with that, and those of you who have spent time in the Southwest wouldn't, either, I think.  At the risk of sounding trite, I find the Southwest, with its mesas and deserts and hot springs, to be a very spiritual place.  When in Sedona this past summer, my companion and I hiked up to the Boynton Vista Vortex.  Those energy fields did not provide me with an other-worldly experience, but the sheer beauty of the red rocks was enough for me to claim a sense of peace and tranquility.

On that same Southwest road trip, we visited Arches National Monument in Utah.  This was my second visit to Arches, and it was my goal to  tackle the hike (designated "difficult" in the park literature) out to Delicate Arch, made known to many from Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire.  Difficult, yes, but so worth the time and effort.  Once in view of that majestic natural structure, it is clear that one has entered "a place of tranquility."  We may not have been riding a horse with no name, but we remember much more than our names from that experience.  We remember serenity and awe and an overwhelming gratitude that the landscape of America, with its deserts and rivers and mountains, is there for us to experience.

True Love

Our love is like a meth lab in your mother's basement
Crudely born from jugs and far too willing to explode
We weren't trying to get high; we were just trying to clean the kitchen
Struck the right combination, yeah, and up, there you go
True love is gonna make you lose your teeth
True love . . . you're 62 at 23
True love will always start out burnin' kind of sweet
So sweet

~ Darrin Bradbury

So after the last two posts, I thought it was time for a love song.  Do you like it?  If you are not familiar with Darrin Bradbury, give him a Google.  I promise, you will be entertained!  When he first moved to Nashville, Bradbury spent the first three months living out of his car in a WalMart parking lot.  My guess is he found some inspiration there.  He is one unique songwriter, at least in my opinion.  I mean, just look at that metaphor he sustains in the lyrics above!  Read them once and think "meth lab," then read them again and think "true love."  Get it?

My love is like a red, red rose.  Blah, blah, blah, blah blah.  I find Darrin's lyrics to be so refreshing.  And that has nothing to do with the drug reference.  I think his songwriting is relatively brilliant.  He gets an idea and he follows it through.  Think about how people fall in love.  Isn't it usually an accidental thing?  I mean, you don't just set out one day and say, I am going to fall in love today.  (Wait . . . didn't I just do that in my last blog?)  But you know what I mean.  I have always thought that the best lovers began as friends.  We weren't trying to get high; we were just trying to clean the kitchen.

I admit, I'm not too sure about how losing one's teeth relates to falling in love, but I am sure that love starts out kind of sweet.

Another Darrin Bradbury song I like is his tribute (of sorts) to the "ironic demise of three childhood heroes," namely Jack Kerouac, Lenny Bruce, and Daffy Duck.  The song is predictably titled Life Is Hard.

It's funny where it starts
And it's funny where it stops
And the whole thing in the middle
Well, it's bound to break your heart

As deliciously irreverent as Bradbury's lyrics may be, I suspect he knows a thing or two about the heartbreak part.