And I find that the hero in this song that I am writing
Doesn't know he's just an image of myself
But as much as he resists the conversation between the rivers and the freeways
He's somehow always asking them for help
I want to make out all the signs I've been ignoring
How the trees reach for the sky or the length of someone's hair
'Cause when you don't know where you are going
Any road will take you there
So maybe I'm in town for someone's birthday
Maybe I make trouble everywhere
But as much as I resist the conversation between the rivers and the freeways
I know it's always there
~ Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes)
A few years ago, Dawes came onto the music scene, largely due to the efforts of Jackson Browne to get the band noticed. And no surprise there. Jackson can recognize good songwriting when he hears it. Much like Jackson, Taylor Goldsmith's lyrics tell a story, a little snippet of everyday life underneath which lies some truth about what it means to be human. I've been a fan since the beginning, including seeing them in concert with my son at Higher Ground, a very small venue in Burlington, Vermont. There were maybe 150 people there, and Sam and I were right up front. I saw them again with my daughter Jenna at Pete Seeger's Clearwater Festival on the Hudson River.
And speaking of Jenna, as I write this, she is sitting in a window seat on JetBlue, heading south to see her mother before resuming her teaching gig in the Bahamas. In a couple of days, she and I will both occupy window seats as we fly over to the Bahamas together for my birthday celebration weekend before she starts teaching and I head back here.
Taylor Goldsmith has a fear of flying, a problem for someone whose career makes travel necessary. So he decided to write about it. He reveals that there's not much poetic or lyrical about being afraid of planes, so his imagination had to fill in some details to create the song. In "From a Window Seat" our storyteller is buckled up and watching as the flight attendant points out the exits, but it looks more like a prayer / or an ancient dance their bloodline reaches through. As he engages in some people-watching, speculating on their personalities and destinations, he drifts into a dream. Waking, he reaches for his notebook to try to write something about what he sees. But it's just buildings and a million swimming pools.
My favorite line in the song is the one about the conversation between the rivers and the freeways. It is easy to visualize the two lines from the window of the plane. Curving, winding, getting closer to one another and then spreading apart. But always parallel to one another. And it isn't hard to find metaphor in the image. Some of us are rivers and some of us are freeways, but we are all headed to the same destination, more or less. Our experiences may keep us close to one another, but we will also fall away at times from the other travelers on our journey. The conversation, however, is always there.
While I was writing this post, I got a text message from Jenna. "Basically this guy stole my seat, but I ended up with an aisle seat at the front of the plane and free drinks. So I might be a bit tipsy." So no window seat for her, but she also got a $25 voucher that she says we can use on our flight to the Bahamas!
And I'm off to pick up my girl!
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