Remember the first time you found out that some adult you'd looked up to had grossly misrepresented the truth?
I'm not talking about outright lies, but spin.
This is a song about spin. It's a song about bitter disappointment and heroes with feet of clay. It's also about the soul-crushing realization that you've been blindly yet blithely complicit in some incalculable evil.
Most of all, this is a song about anger, and the salvific realization that, if you don't get angry and stay that way -- at least in some measure -- you'll keep getting rooked until, one day, you're the one doing the rooking. One day, this song says without saying, if you don't look out, you'll be the one who's joined the ranks of the living dead.
Every one of these musicians understands that. Johnny Rotten wishes he could put anger across with as much skill and daring as lead vocalist, Julie Matthews, does here. Every note lacerates, every word accuses. This is utterly righteous anger, and it's impossible to deliver without musical and emotional integrity.
With Fairport Convention vets Ashley Hutchings and Simon Nicol, this is the Albion Band with "The Jewel In the Crown".
The late Maya Angelou once wrote, "I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back."
It's a good lesson for folks in their 20s to learn -- that, in order to get, you have to give, too. Simon and Garfunkel were in their 20s when they recorded this song, but by the time the story ends, they had yet to learn the valuable lesson about giving and getting. They started out to "look for America" with their hands out. They ended up the same way.
Kathy, I'm lost, I said
Thought I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching
And I don't know why
The question of why is a fine thing to answer in your 20s and 30s. Sometimes, finding the answer can be the stuff of a midlife crisis; but some get through their 40s and 50s and beyond without ever having answered it.
Counting the cars
On the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for
America
That might be one clue: Shutting yourself up in your car, doing your own thing and taking your own journey year after year is a good way to avoid the truth. Opinions, they say, are like navels: everyone has one. And everyone is willing to offer you theirs. If you're staring 50 or 60 in the face without having discovered how to fill the emptiness that everyone feels at one time or another, maybe it's because you stopped listening to good advice a long time ago. Probably because that oh-so-helpful advice always has to do with sacrificing yourself to something, someone, or Someone greater than yourself.
Of course, it's always possible that you've never received good advice.
You know what they say about that: "If you want something done right, do it yourself."
I've been sharing some hardcore bluegrass and country music on Twitter this week. I guess you could say I've been in a mood. But, then, nothing gets me in a mood like the suggestion that soulless, inauthentic tripe is the real, musical deal.
Somebody read my piece on post-millennial music, and decided that it meant I was endorsing, nay, obsessed with that granny in gangsta drag, Jay Z, and his perennially spread-thighed consort.
Ahem!
Years ago, Mrs. Carter appeared on some stage where someone was strumming a mandolin. This, um, effort launched a media frenzy in which it was declared that the first lady of Autotune could now add "bluegrass singer" to her list of presumed accomplishments.
She has since been crowned queen of something or other, because nothing says regal like nylons under a bathing suit.
As for Mr. Carter, whose admiration of "breastesses" renders him as sexually interesting as a full diaper, he is no more a musician than he is a sex god. Like his wife, he has coasted to artistic credibility on the notion that mere proximity to something true, real, and wildly creative (in this case, The Beatles) grants him equal musical status.
It does not.
Talent is a gift. Sweat is a must if you want to develop it. The Carters have neither. And, they don't have the class or the dignity to do anything but steal from someone who does.
Wanna thunder at me about racism? Do your worst, but know this: I spent my childhood in the free states watching black entertainment, sports, and political figures get to the top and do it right.
When these two cheap, sequined thugs have the talent of a Smokey Robinson or an Aretha Franklin, the political will of a Martin Luther King or an Eleanor Holmes Norton, the grace and athleticism of a Debi Thomas or an Edwin Moses, you won't have to tout them, because I'll know.
And, so will everybody else.
Next up: Madonna? Are You Kidding? I've Never Talked To Madonna. Oh, wait! It's basically the same article with different identifying characteristics, and a penultimate paragraph which mentions Eleanor Parker, Joanne Woodward, Kathryn Grayson, Shirley Bassey, Ann Miller, and Cyd Charisse.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm re-upping this piece with additional notes to be found here. The notes address precisely the kinds of issues on which David examined me. No Christian could have had a better bat mitzvah.
I knew David Berman in a different context than just about anyone else on this planet knew him -- outside and completely ignorant of his music.
David played a fiduciary role for another, dearer, friend and myself as we entered into the process of making one of the most important decisions you can possibly make.
My interactions with David were not those of musically-literate fan and indie rock god, but of teacher and student (We swapped those roles so seamlessly we lost track of who was who). They were the interactions of watchman and thirsty pilgrim approaching the gates.
David Berman didn't give a damn whether I liked him. He was more interested in why I liked ... anything else. He didn't care whether we shared the same taste. He searched to know how I had developed mine. He especially didn't give a rat's ass whether I knew what his values were but, like the angel wrestling Jacob, David wasn't going to let me go until he knew for certain what my values were.
That's what our introduction was about: whether we shared a sufficient number of core values to share space in a community, to protect one mutual friend in particular, and to protect the planet in general.
Some of those answers he knew without knowing: In conversation we discovered that he and a group of friends had been following my blogs on various platforms going back to 2007 -- FM and Uncouth Utterance on Blogger; Gospel Bluegrass Blog, Bluegrass Bohemian, Bluegrass Universe, and Sunday Is For Sounds on Tumblr; as well as Davis Mae Music and Uncouth Utterance on Twitter.
The things he didn't know, he asked for; the list of books that changed my life is here only because of him. One day into starting a new blog on Tumblr, I woke to the news that David Berman had passed.
And so, I lost one of the few friends I've ever had who wanted to make friends for the same desperate reason I did -- because it would matter. To our tiny, insignificant community, to the planet, it. would. matter.
I knew David Berman as someone who believed that social justice began within one's own walls. He tried to live those values, and all he got were random rules.
Here, in tribute, is First Aid Kit, singing that very song with every drop of the midnight sun melancholy it deserves.
Before I go, thank you for everything, David. I believe, as you do, that we will meet again.
To the rest of you, may his memory be a blessing.
Here's First Aid Kit with Silver Jews' "Random Rules".
There are at least ten books that, by the time I finished them, had completely upended my understanding of myself and the world around me. These are they.
The list is here because it contains some seminal works on popular music. Feel free to ignore the tomes on social justice if you didn't ask for my opinion on such things.
In chronological order of reading, best as I can remember.
Take Wing; Jean Little: Even though there were other (visibly) disabled kids in my class, I felt I was the only one. Jean Little's best book, about a girl with a learning-disabled brother, made me realize that other kids coped with disability -- and were desperate to hide it. Take Wing hit me like a bomb. It is, hands down, the book that made me love reading, way back in fourth grade.
The Poetry Of Rock; I was a classically-trained flautist who didn't start singing until she was fifteen. What I didn't know about the crucial importance of lyrics, this book taught me. It would be decades before I could explicate this way of thinking to others. Side note: My copy of this is dissolving as I write.
That Man Cartwright; Ann Fairbairn: Two lessons -- wait, no, three -- I learned from this book: One: Change will never come about if you only hang with the, er, cool people, or those who think like you. Two: Going along to get along exacts a terrifying cost that everyone in your orbit ends up paying. Three: Justice for farmworkers means justice for everyone who consumes the fruits of their labor. This is true in the most concrete and immutable way possible. Don't believe me? Read this book, then think hard -- really hard -- about the constant spate of produce recalls we see today.
The Rolling Stone Record Guide; Various: As much as I hated Rolling Stone's chest-pounding, provincial style, the magazine -- and, by extension its first record guide -- introduced me to a way of writing about music that directly impacts my work today. Despite what crabby commentators like Steve Allen said, rock and roll could often be counted on to reveal a rich inner life and exceptional cultural literacy; as well as an activism informed deeply by established knowledge and lived experience, on the part of its creators. Attention must be paid, they insisted. I haven't stopped paying attention since.
The Name Is Archer; Ross MacDonald: I didn't have to read books to know that some people did evil because it was fun (The First Deadly Sin, Lawrence Sanders). I didn't have to read books to know that a parent could be the devil incarnate (Iceberg Slim's Mama Black Widow). I didn't have to read books to know that kids could be thrown in the trash because it was convenient (Bel Kaufman's Up The Down Staircase, Stephen King's Carrie). I did have to read a book to know that, somehow, somewhere, there were adults who gave a rip. And I had to read it over and over again. This collection of short stories, featuring detective, Lew Archer, yet another survivor of a rough childhood, was that book. I've only just now remembered that I found it because someone in Rolling Stone mentioned MacDonald's heart for maltreated kids, as expressed in the California-centered Lew Archer stories. I have no idea who that person was, but I am eternally grateful.
Tales From A Troubled Land; Alan Paton: From the days when art and literature from South Africans of color (U. of Chicago prof, Denis Brutus, was a notable exception) weren't getting through to the States. South African-raised Englishman, Paton, avoids the privileged-yet-earnest white activist traps of broad characterization, either/or thinking, and sweeping generalization. Paton knows the emotional terrain because he lived with and loved deeply South Africa's people of color. Their experiences were his unshakable, true north, and his writing taught me never to accept anything less from my own. Today's activist authors rely on The Times (pick a major, metro area) and NPR for their talky, tired, impotent change-being. They get book deals and literary prizes for it, too. Paton puts them all to shame.
Gentlemen's Agreement; Laura Z. Hobson: More than just how bigotry looks, Gentlemen's Agreement is about how bigotry thinks -- and, in the most rarified circles. It helped me home in on the qualities of human interaction on race and creed that just seemed ... off. Surprisingly, for a book about ideas, this is a book of profound humanity. Surprisingly, for a book about a bunch of New York swells, it's a book that stays blessedly down to earth.
Fahrenheit 451; Ray Bradbury: Censorship? No. Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1953, is about the consequences of thinking -- and doing -- for yourself in the age of Internet and reality TV. Shatteringly prescient.
Can't You Hear Me Callin'; Richard D. Smith: I was not a fan of musical biographies. Even the high-falutin' ones seemed to focus exclusively on their subjects' sex lives in order to obscure the authors' inexcusable ignorance of the fundamentals of music, and of creativity itself. Not so Richard D. Smith's towering biography of the Father of Bluegrass Music, Bill Monroe. Smith understands Monroe's earth-shattering, musical creation in a way that bluegrass musician/authors like Neil Rosenberg, and musical dilettantes like Ted Lehmann and Kim Ruehl of No Depression fail to do to this day. Are the sex, the soap operas, the struggles, and the spite still here? Yes, they are, in authoritative detail. But, if you want to understand bluegrass music better than anyone else on the festival circuit, there is no other -- or better -- book.
The Bible: Right. Don't @ me. See, if someone spends your childhood telling you that you must live by this book, or perish; if, decades later, you discover that a bunch of someones spent your childhood lying to you about what's in this book you must live by, or perish; when you finally read the entire book for yourself, it is life-changing. In my case, so much so that I now live by an almost entirely-different set of rules than those with which I grew up.
Anyway, the list is chronological to the best of my recollection. It begins when I'm 15. It ends in August of 2018. I'm probably forgetting some things. It's been a long time.
Copland: Rodeo/Billy The Kid; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conducting: We were rehearsing selections from Copland's Rodeo in youth symphony. This marked the first time I ever heard a recording of a piece I was rehearsing (God bless my hometown library). The very idea that I was playing music that Leonard Bernstein had conducted was unimaginably powerful. Suddenly, music, which had always been exhilarating was serious business, too.
Thank You, Music Lovers; Spike Jones: I have my dad and, once again, the La Habra Library to thank for this one. A record that, in effect, was the obverse of the Copland, with serious musicians doing unabashedly-silly stuff without ever abandoning classical rigor.
Roses In the Snow; Emmylou Harris: My dad was country. My mother was not. After a 16-year middlebrow reign of terror, during which country music was banned on our stereo and tolerated on the great god, television, this is the record that reminded me I like things twangy af.
Clannad; Self-titled: 1983. On a drive through Mendocino, a friend popped this cassette into the player, and I was instantly smitten. As the reviewer says, I've grown out of this record in favor of stuff that's at once more traditional and more experimental, but this is where my love of Irish folk music began.
Without Clannad, I wouldn't have seen The Chieftains in concert twice, wouldn't have tuned in to Thistle and Shamrock every Saturday night for years. And I wouldn't have understood nearly as much about bluegrass going in.
Sun City; Artists United Against Apartheid: Despite being born into a conservative family, I've been a liberal for as long as I can remember.
My particular brand of liberalism never extended to corrupt charitable efforts, however; the rampant misuse of the monies collected for the No Nukes campaign left me wary of vanity charities. Did they know what they were talking about? Did they care?
A few years later, conservative acquaintances tried to get me to abandon my commitment to Live Aid by sharing stories of foodstuffs left rotting on the docks at Addis Ababa, thanks to self-satisfied rock star incompetence.
It wasn't until years later that those stories were not only proven false, but politically motivated, as well.
When the Sun City record premiered, I hung on to my money, went once again to my local library, and read everything about South Africa I could get my hands on. I satisfied myself that I had a reasonable grasp of the issues, albeit primarily from the perspective of literary and liberal South African whites. You see, apartheid extended to the arts, too.
Armed with this knowledge, I began cautiously to listen to what Artists United Against Apartheid had to say. I devoured every excerpt of this documentary that MTV cared to televise. At last, I satisfied myself that they knew what they were doing, and were fully committed to getting it done. I bought the vinyl and the VHS. I believe my money was well spent.
Whenever some rebel with a cause comes calling, this is, now and forever, how I handle it.
The Peace Album; Paul Horn: I was burned out on music. I would see local bands on stage and go home just-below-boiling jealous. Thank God I had the maturity to ask myself just what I would do up there if I had the chance.
I had no idea.
Then, I heard this record, and got excited about music -- about performing -- again. This kind of choral singing with flutes was what I wanted to do.
So, I tracked down a Conn Multivider just like Paul Horn used -- only to discover that I'd have to drill holes in my flute to connect the thing.
Yeah, no.
i conferred with fellow musicians who were infinitely more tech-savvy than I. Did I really have to risk ruining the flute I'd had since fifth grade to get this sound? They concurred that I did.
Yeah.
No.
I had a funeral in my mind. I'm still not over it.
Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms; Jimmy Martin: This and the next two records hit me like a ton of bricks. They brought me not only to bluegrass, but back to my musical self. This one had the high lonesome sound, and the punishing bluegrass technique, but it had something more: rock 'n' roll energy. You could do that?
Turns out you could. Music that came up in around the same time frame as my dad did, could be dangerous.
Wait A Minute; The Seldom Scene: This bluegrass wasn't dangerous -- unless you were the kind who stole lunch money and beat up younger kids.
Written by banjoist and L.A. session stalwart, Herb Pedersen. "Wait A Minute" was 70s-sensitive and classically precise (Tenor vocalist, John Duffey, had picked up a few vocal tricks from his dad, who sang in the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera). Just what I, a die-hard fan of 19th century Russian classical music, needed in order to remember myself in the midst of the vernacular.
Tiny Broken Heart; Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerard: In spite of everything, I felt something was missing from bluegrass. I had no idea what it was until I heard this song. Then and now, bluegrass is at its best when it is sharing the stories of forgotten and downtrodden folks.
All Or Nothing; The Small Faces: A record that simultaneously brought me back to rock 'n' roll, and reminded me of the energy and emotional truth I first heard in bluegrass. Just what I needed after 12 years of forsaking all others for the love of Bill, Ralph, Jimmy, and The Scene.
My standards are exacting, but I do best when my palette is big and varied. Since the Small Faces were virtually unheard of in the States, their music satisfied my urge for discovery. And soul.
I should end things here with some kind of summarizing paragraph. Trouble is, it's not over yet. #Sagittarius
I'm supposed to write an arresting opening line here -- one that grabs your attention, and sets the tone for the piece. But, I am just. so. tired. You know, the kind of tired you get when you read self-important drool from what amounts to a major media outlet in your particular small pond. I'm speaking of this piece on rock's allegedly uneasy alliance with bluegrass and country music, over on the, um, "Bluegrass" Situation. The inspiration for the piece? "West Coast rockers", The Flying Burrito Brothers, and their groundbreaking album, The Gilded Palace Of Sin. Uneasy alliance? Who cares that bluegrass is as much about history as it is future? Who cares about the rebellious, countercultural energy of bluegrass' first generation when you believe that bluegrass begins with a rapacious suburbanite from Champaign, Illinois? (Long hair, warp speed, hotshot instrumentalists, the high lonesome sound, the sketchy personal lives -- bluegrass wasn't exactly yer grandpa's sleepy string band) And who cares if that selfsame major media outlet takes the name of bluegrass in vain, just to sell itself "as the authentic expression of a brand-name musical genre with considerable cachet" as I wrote here? Some megachurch baby has a point to make, and he's gonna make it. Let's sort this out, shall we?
Just how unlikely would it have been for a bunch of California hippies to ally themselves with country and bluegrass music? Never mind the huge number of boomers and 1960s kids whose parents played bluegrass and country, live or via radio and records, in their homes. Never mind that this population included not only native southerners, but those who had taken the Hillbilly Highway in search of work. Never mind the bluegrass versions of songs about that very phenomenon -- "California Cottonfields", "One More Dollar", and "Waitin' For the Hard Times To Go". Let's instead focus on that most obscure and academic of cultural indicators -- television. 😂😂😂 How antagonistic were them librul hippies to country and bluegrass? So much so that country and bluegrass artists The Carter Family, Flatt and Scruggs, Doc Watson, The Dillards, and Johnny Cash appeared on the beatnik showcase, Hootenanny. Premiere date? April, 1963. So much so that country and bluegrass artists as diverse as Watson, Cash, The Stanley Brothers, Cousin Emmy, and The New Lost City Ramblers appeared and jammed with noted union supporter, Pete Seeger, on Seeger's Rainbow Quest TV show. Premiere date? 1965. So much so that rockers like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Linda Ronstadt -- the last three based in California -- appeared and jammed with country star, Johnny Cash, on his eponymous TV show. Premiere date? June 7, 1969. For the sake of chronology, let's review the release date for The Flying Burrito Brothers' The Gilded Palace Of Sin:
How easy was that? I guess you have to know history to Google it. You should be required to know history before you're hired to write about it.
In 2017, New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, wrote a column entitled A History of White Delusion. In it, he cited a mind-boggling statistic: Over half of all whites surveyed believe that discrimination against whites is a larger and more pressing problem than discrimination against blacks. They hold this belief despite the overwhelming statistics to the contrary.
Again via statistics, we know that all of these people cannot be fringe-dwelling, white nationalist Trump supporters. So, how did so many whites come to believe that white folks have it worse than anyone in America?
The editorial begins with high praise for Howlin' Wolf, certifying his role as a titan of American socio-cultural change. Then, it gets ugly:
Really?
He was large, tall, and imposing, to be sure. But "[h]e seemed at any moment like he might actually turn into a wolf"? Only to someone who views black men as something less than human to begin with.
If Wolf seems a little edgy in that Shindig clip, maybe it's because he was in his hostile,
openly racist home country, having to watch his back every second for fear of what people like the writer of this Open Culture piece might do or say. I mean, gee whiz, folks; the man known as Howlin' Wolf could turn into a ravening beast any second.
Ooooooohhhhhh!!!
The lone comment on Open Culture's editorial paints a picture that none of us ever saw in the history books. Read the final sentence and weep.
Oh, but America, America! At least we were the first to get him on TV, in spite of those nasty Jim Crow laws:
And so, American exceptionalism rears its ugly head on a website whose mission it is to provide educational resources at no cost. No, professor, Howlin' Wolf's first "national television broadcast" was not in the U.S., but in the U.K. In 1964.
If you think of yourself as an intelligent, left-leaning, non-religious, open-minded sort who loves to learn, you might very well consume an editorial like the Open Culture piece believing you had broadened your horizons when, all the time, you were solidifying your confirmation bias.
If half of America believes that whites have it worse than blacks, maybe it's because racist "educational resources" subliminally suggest, in the name of learning, that whites have given scary black folks the benefit of the doubt, and a warm welcome on their TV screens, long enough.
It had be been pointed out to him, he said, that his infection could have come from anywhere. He continued with a pile of ostensibly-credible medical factoids, although he did not name the source(s) or list their credentials. Prescription Bluegrass followed with a brief recap of Libbea's retraction. He sounded beaten, cowed.
No. He sounded terrified. Somebody had clearly ordered Gene Libbea to STFU. Libbea's original Facebook post on his illness, as well as his apologetic follow-up, were originally public posts. Today, Libbea no longer shares any of his Facebook posts with the public. Even though I found my original editorial on the Prescription Bluegrass website, it did not come up in site searches for "Gene Libbea". Likewise, the PB story (which included a link to Libbea's original Facebook post) and the retraction that PB subsequently published. If you click the link to PB's original story (below, in my original editorial), you will find that it no longer exists. Make of all that what you will. Whether Gene Libbea caught a mysterious, near-fatal bug from the girl or not, she was ill with strep throat when she attended that camp. Someone -- perhaps a friend of Ventura Fiddle Girl who has significant influence in the bluegrass community (and something on Libbea?) -- may have tried to shut Libbea up. I'll be damned if they shut me up. So, go ahead and come at me. I'll be here -- along with my original editorial:
Gene Libbea, giving new meaning to the phrase "Typhoid Mary"
On April 25, Prescription Bluegrass Blog published this story of bassist Gene Libbea's mysterious illness. While working as an instructor at a fiddle camp, Libbea was exposed to strep throat by an infected student, whom he calls "Ventura Fiddle Girl". Ventura Fiddle Girl was there with her mother. While sitting across from Libbea at breakfast, the girl confided that she had strep.
Just a few days later, Libbea became seriously ill. After 12 days of suffering from an infectious illness that five doctors could not diagnose, and a subsequent five-day hospital stay, Libbea announced that he had been discharged from the hospital. That part of his story, at least, has a happy ending, but what are we to make of the girl?
Ventura Fiddle Girl, I get it: In 1953, Bill Monroe survived a head-on collision and 19 broken bones to return to full-time touring just eight months later. In 1982, he underwent emergency surgery for an enlarged prostate, and was onstage three hours later, playing and singing for a 60-minute show. We share these true stories over and over again to strengthen the bluegrass community by imbibing the mythos of bluegrass culture. We share them to bind ourselves in spirit to the Father of Bluegrass, and to inspire ourselves to heroic deeds, both musically and personally.
Maybe you're not a sociopath who runs roughshod over everyone in your ruthless quest for ... whatever it is you're after. Maybe you're just a crazy kid who wants to make her mark on bluegrass music. Maybe we can say the same about your mother who, doubtless, was the driving force behind your reckless decision to attend that camp.
But broken bones and an enlarged prostate are not contagious (You do know that, right?). Strep throat most certainly is.
You held on to your deposit, and in so doing, saved a few hundred bucks. You cost Gene Libbea many times that in doctor's visits, a lengthy hospital stay, and everything that goes with it. You cost his friends, fans, family, and colleagues fear and anxiety. You cost his mother the emotional turmoil of a 125-mile trip, not knowing if her son would be alive when she got there.
Your intentions may have been benign, but actions have consequences. Your actions had malignant -- maybe even fatal -- consequences. There's no telling how many other people you may have infected.
So, Ventura Fiddle Girl -- and all you other aspiring bluegrass legends -- the next time you want to be a hero, save somebody else first.
For Memorial Day, something from Old and In the Way, who were of an age and time where they had to be thinking about Viet Nam.
We lose sight of it in the midst of all the hamburger grilling and flag waving, but war is hell for everybody concerned. Don't let anybody tell you any different.
Over on "The country is circling the drain" Twitter, certain members of the chattering class warn folks that we "don't want to go back to the 70s". They're not talking about casual sex, platform shoes, and disco.
Here's what I remember: People loved this song. They continued to love it through Vietnam, the Cold War, the murder of Olympic athletes, the energy crisis, Watergate, and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst.
They don't sing songs like this anymore. What I mean by that is, they don't sing lyrics with this attitude anymore. Everything is revoltingly aspirational. Encouragement is reserved for workouts and climbing the corporate ladder. Everything exists solely in and for the future; nobody has any medicine for the times when yesterday, today, and tomorrow just suck.
I think this song has the answer: Pull yourself back down to earth. Listen more closely to those who love and value you than anyone else. Let friendship and true love be your medicine, and let them be the healing you dispense.
We live in dangerous times. The danger's not going away any time soon and, for some of us, it's right outside the door. We can't always change that, but we can change our focus. Love is all we have. Focus on that.
Sandy Denny died 40 years ago this month, on April 21, 1978. This is not something I have wanted to examine. I first read of Denny's death in Rolling Stone. I hadn't yet heard any of Fairport Convention's music, much less Denny's solo work. After that obit, I didn't want to. There was something wrong, something hush-hush, the obit implied -- not just about Denny's death, but about Denny herself. Wherever I was in my life, I didn't want to go down that particular rabbit hole -- not even after I fell head over heels for her music 10 years later. Sure, she was brilliant, but wasn't there something dark and rotten at the core? Fast forward to the present, and a career spent examining the lies people tell. Such is the life of an ad copywriter with even the barest shred of ethics. A dear friend floated the gentlest of suggestions: What about taking another look? So, here I am. Listen Listen to him do He is the one who is for you Listen, they say He'll come and take us all away -- Listen, Listen But man has come to plough the tide, The oak lies on the ground. I hear their tires in the fields, They drive the stallion down. The roses bleed both light and dark, The winds do seldom call. The running sands recall the time When love was lord of all. -- The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood You take away homes from the homeless, And leave them to die in the cold. The gypsy who begged for your presents, He will laugh in your face when you're old. -- Genesis Hall While we fumble in the darkness where once there was light Roaming the land of the ancients. Oasis of love, sweet water of life, God bless the poor ones whose patience never died. -- One Way Donkey Ride Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving I do not count the time For who knows where the time goes? --Who Knows Where the Time Goes Denny's lyrics, whether she wrote or merely sang them, were hardly superficial declarations of principle. Yet everyone, from gossipy obit writers to her dearest friends, felt the need to posthumously trash her for behavior that has earned famous men celebration -- even acclaim. No one is without hypocrisy and contradiction, but neither do alcoholism and addiction spring from shallow roots, despite the cheap diagnoses of those in the know. Did she jump, or was she pushed indeed. It's nothing more than 20/20 hindsight to say that everyone around her missed the signals Sandy Denny kept sending. The science of addiction treatment has made great strides since she passed -- so, too, common knowledge of it. No one can go back and change their responses, and we shouldn't guilt them into trying. All we can do is clean up our own act. We can stop imagining it's cool and edgy when men go this way, but perverted and unnatural when women do. We can stop using other people's pain to gratify our cruelest impulses. We can do the hard work of discovering where our ideas come from, and reversing course when we discover how wrong we have been. We can stand up for those whose weaknesses are different from our own, and we can shed grace by the boatload. If Sandy Denny spent her life saying anything, it was this. This is Sandy Denny, out front of Fairport Convention, singing "Genesis Hall".
His Yoke Is Easy from The Messiah by George Friderich Handel, The Academy of St. Martin In the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner: I've posted before about one of my most influential choral conductors, who once told me that, "Handel was a German who wrote Italian operas for the English." He meant far more than English audiences. It is beyond curious that a race of people so determined to avoid awkwardness that they make every moment more awkward, should interpret this portion of The Messiah with such unfettered joy, and defiance. Speaking of awkward, the interwebs wil tell you that the lyric here reads, "His burthen is light". But, what is a "burthen"? Is it some kind of burqa for childbearing women? For newborn babies? Or, is it simply some rotten ingredient in the word salad of some semi-literate gatekeeper? The truth is, if you want any sense of what these lyrics mean, you have to go to the source -- Jesus Himself, as quoted in Matthew 11:28-30. Now that you get it, click the link, and crank it up. For your sweater-knitting auntie, for your bullet-journaling frenemy, for every "25 Things ..." blog post, for the Nazis past and present, play this one loud.
Merry Christmas, Baby, Otis Redding: In a season that's so often about temporary glitz and empty promises, it's good to remember that it's not Christmas unless it's got soul.
Redding doesn't bother to hide his anguish here. He's clearly thinking of other Christmases that weren't so merry, wondering if this one, too, will evaporate before his eyes. For someone like this, you shouldn't say it if you don't mean it.
What Child Is This, Paul Horn: With a choir of soprano, alto, and bass flutes, and a primitive octave splitter called a Multivider, jazz titan, Paul Horn (Chico Hamilton Quintet), created one of the least-known but most enduring holiday albums ever recorded.
The big reverb and parallel fifths would put this right at home on any Game of Thrones soundtrack, while the Scotch snaps in the bass give it a sort of traditional Christmas feel. But, his articulation -- so liquid he could almost be scatting -- puts the stamp of a jazzer all over this piece. The whole album is like this -- a heady brew of musical influences.
Christmas In Hollis, Run-D.M.C.: (above): I'm hardly a connoisseur of this genre. What I do remember is this: While the media threatened us with nightmare images of wilding teens, and super predators, super-strengthened by crack, or angel dust, or ... whatever, Run-D.M.C. presented an almost-suburban story of naughty elves, a Christmas miracle, and as much traditional, Southern food as you could eat.
What followed years later was the discrediting of some doctoral candidate's super-predator theory, the acquittal of the so-called Central Park five, and the international exposure of Donald Trump, whose newspaper fanned the flames, as a liar, a bigot, and full-time attention-seeker.
Meanwhile, Run-D.M.C. are probably home for Christmas, rejoicing because they know exactly what's on the menu.
Drosselmeyer's Gifts from The Nutcracker, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Ernest Ansermet: Let's, once and for all, abandon the notion that The Nutcracker is merely bland, holiday fare for the kiddies. Russian culture -- about which Russia's president seems entirely clueless -- won't let you have that. And it shouldn't.
See, sometimes, we expect more than we should from mere human effort. Sometimes, gifts offer us more fear and frustration than uncomplicated joy.
These are probably good things to remember for those who celebrate the birth of someone who promised, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Christmastime Is Here, Vince Guaraldi Trio: Maybe it's that the melody starts on a note that begs to be resolved. Maybe it's the fact that they never quite hit the high notes on the head. In other words, maybe there was a method to Vince Guaraldi's madness.
None of that satisfactorily explains how a genius of cool jazz got a group of kids to deliver a performance suffused with melancholy.
Way back in 1965, The Vince Guaraldi Trio, and a handful of kids figured out how to say, in the language of music, exactly what Christmas means to some of us. I see you, Linus, and this performance gives me chills every time I hear it.
There's a corner of Twitter where people whose gravest concern was having zits for the Homecoming dance, tell themselves scary stories of How Bad It Was back then, assuming that all who read these dystopian fantasies not only Know What Is Meant, but agree wholeheartedly, with an accompanying shiver down their spines.
Personally, I liked it just fine when kids didn't kill other kids for shutting them out of the in crowd, and English folk rockers could sing a carol about Jesus's birth, a capella, in Latin, taking it to Number 1 on the charts, albeit in their home country. Do They Know It's Christmas, Band Aid: When this single was released, I was deeply moved, as were many.
Older, ostensibly wiser friends strove to burst my bubble. They counseled that Band Aid's efforts were useless, that food sat rotting on the docks because the organizers hadn't the brains to do it right. Work harder, they said. Make money and spend it. There is nothing else. Your heroes are hopelessly filthy.
No.
See, we have no right to expect humans and human effort to be perfect. Purity culture was as ugly then as it is now.
There's more to life than getting and spending, and Band Aid proves it. The initial effort served as the springboard for major charitable projects by Bob Geldof, Midge Ure, and Bono -- efforts that continue to this day.
"We let in light, and we banish shade", the song goes. It's not just talking about flipping a switch.
Beautiful Star Of Bethlehem, Dailey and Vincent: (above): Number One with a bullet -- or, maybe, it's a Bible. And why?
Because too many conservatives are dreading any kind of overtly-religious end to this countdown, even as they exploit the religious right in a last-ditch effort to grab more money, more power.
Forget about it.
See, physics may be the reason for the season, but Jesus is the reason Christians call it Christmas. All the ideological squeamishness (read: hypocrisy) on conservatives' part won't change that.
So, Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays -- take your pick. May the coming year give you enough courage to use the holiday greetings your conscience dictates, no matter who else is listening.
Today is one of those "Do you remember where you were when ...?" days.
I don't want to remember, but I know that forgetting brings more days like these.
I was living with my parents, having tacked on an extra semester of school so I could take advantage of my dad's medical and dental insurance. Wisdom teeth, don'tcha know?
I had no job, but I did have a little transistor radio my dad had scrounged up. It was my habit, right before I turned out the lights, to switch my radio on, and turn the dial until I'd heard a couple of favorite songs to cool me out.
And so, I turned the radio on.
Beatles. Cool. I turned the dial. More Beatles. All Beatles. Only Beatles. And John Lennon.
Just a few years before, someone had offered the former Beatles an outrageous sum of money to reunite.
They said no at the time, but maybe, it was that.
Or, it was bad.
My mother knocked. Have you heard?
Heard what?
John Lennon was shot.
Is he dead?
She nodded.
I had a huge, cozy, pile bathrobe the color of a swimming pool, of Indian turquoise. The pile was flattened along the seam of the tie belt. I kept looking at it, how wrong it was, not remembering that it had always been that way.
It couldn't be real. They'd say it was a mistake, that John -- what an outrageous liberty to even think of him on a first-name basis -- had pulled through.
Eventually, someone in the radio spoke. They had facts, times, a press conference with a doctor.
The doctor.
I had a class -- History of Rock 'n Roll. I'd been assigned an oral report as a final project -- The History of The Who. It was to last three days, include audio and video.
In the afternoons, I'd go to the music library, check out a set of headphones, put a homemade Who cassette into the deck, and write. On December ninth, the music played dead, and the words refused to come.
I sat outside on the patio, listening to the DJ spin Beatles tunes on the campus radio station. In the days following, I bought every commemorative magazine I could get my hands on.
The irony is that John Lennon wasn't that awesome. Shunted off to a humorless aunt by feckless, self-centered parents, Lennon was an outlier in a society that hated them, and does to this day.
He was angry, and stayed that way. He hit women, said ugly things about his ex-BFF for the whole world to hear. He helped break up The Beatles for the sake of a sleazebag manager. And, when he got curious about Christianity, he called on Jerry Falwell -- one of the most vile professing Christians who ever lived.
The further irony is, unlike some with similar histories, he kept trying to be a better man. His words and music are a living record of that struggle.
In his place, we have some guy who talks shit, and says he knows Jesus.
We'll see about that, but I digress.
We have a below-average, allegedly-schizophrenic nothingburger who decided that John Lennon had something he wanted, and the only way to get it was by murdering an ex-Beatle (Hey, hey, NRA!).
So, he bought a gun. Because, if you're the one holding the gun, you're the expert.
You're the superstar.
John Lennon spent his life looking for some light, so I'd be remiss if, while remembering him, I didn't look for some, too.
So, I see Yoko Ono, who, in the crone phase of life, has surely become the hippest crone whoever lived.
I see a piece of Central Park, where beautiful things grow. Its name is Strawberry Fields.
A living record of John Lennon's struggle. Of ours.
It might not be good to remember all that, but it is necessary. In these times, when the powers that be insist that we can't, shouldn't, don't, and had better not remember, it is an act of defiance.
Johnny would have liked that.
And so, in memory of good dreams and bad, in memory of him, here's a song from the first John Lennon record I ever had.
I described my last post as impressionistic, not at all about facts, but certainly about truth.
It was not, however, the whole truth.
It does no good to tell the truth if you won't tell the whole, ugly mess.
This is the rest of it, about India and everywhere else. This is the part that the vanishing middle class could afford to ignore, until America inaugurated someone who is determined to make it the only truth for all but the top 1% of wealth holders in the world.
This is what our cities, our countryside, our planet will feed us by the time the mad, orange man with the black heart, twisted mind, and ravenous fingers is finished. "I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children"
"Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley"
"Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall" This is Bob Dylan.
