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Same Old Rock |
Having reviled organised religion the length and depth of my life it might seem ironic that I am now finding so much joy in expressing my spirituality in the company of others however its not the sharing of spirituality that I have a problem with, rather that 6000 years of human history have shown us not one example of a religion which doesn't finally give up all pretence of asking questions to blithely dish out answers steeped in rhetoric, untruth and eventually blood. If a certain major religion had had more moral and spiritual fortitude we may not have seen the horrors of the crusades, the burning times of the inquisition and the gun-wielding oppression of the bible belt, doin' it "Fawr Geeezus".
That Christianity is not the only religion guilty is no excuse, but this song focuses on it with intensity and between the poetry and inspiration there is still individual spirituality bursting out in "Love's cascade".
While the performance here is a pale shadow of its original the message is no less potent or passionate, the original "clues" still hold but spare a thought for the "Famous Straggler" sitting there in Rome . . . . no doubt fiddling while it burns again . . . .
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Sam Stone |
Travelling through Montana I met a weird guy on a bus called Emo who was headed for Fort Harrison, a Vietnam veterans hospital and I was invited to go up and play some tunes for them which I accepted . . . . I was appalled. They treated me like a king simply because they rarely had "outside" visitors. Whatever your politics about the vietnam war it is thoughtless to forget that thousands of young men risked (or gave) their lives for a cause (right or wrong). When they came home the least they could have expected was respect for their personal sacrifices, certainly not the abuse and anger of a nation who blamed the pawns and not the king. Every guy at Fort Harrison told stories of the horrors they had seen but they said that almost the worst thing was coming home to be ignored or spat at on the street. Many were deeply affected by that and that is why places like fort Harrison exist.
All the men I met had survived Vietnam but those I met were struggling to survive coming home again, this is their song.
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The Highwayman |
Some very good friends of mine had had some terrible news when their son died suddenly.
Scott was a music kind of guy and I was asked if I'd work something out with his neice, Natalie, to perform at a memorial concert. She has a great voice but was very nervous and I was too, trying to pick the right song.
Eventually this one came to my mind and I think its pretty close to being the most lyrically complete and rounded song I know. You will have read my spiritual pages so you'll perhaps understand what I think about what I see: that life is not ended in death on earth, that we are eternal beings of amazing powers and each lifetime we choose to experience on earth, as humans, we learn something new about our spirit and our existence. So, for all the words I could (and do!) write, the inflection and meaning in this simple little song gets the message over quite beautifully and when you hear it maybe you'll know what I mean.
I'm grateful to Dave Whalley of Mansfield from who I learned this song and I will never play it so well . . . . By the way I think it was Glen Campbell who wrote it originally . . . (!)
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Blue Guitar |
Recent times have found me turning back to my old friend, music, again. Something has happened to me, my new blue guitar which I just couldn't get along with for weeks and weeks after I bought it suddenly came alive in my hands and developped a tone that I never thought it ever could despite new strings and all. Maybe I just learned to play it properly. Maybe you learn all sorts of things in life and music like that, by wanting it to work and persevering.
Someone told me my voice sounds like Clifford T Ward which I think is a compliment, it was certainly meant to be I'm sure. I guess you don't get the right accent by living in rural England and Canada, perhaps a couple of re-incarnations in small town midwest USA will sort me out, meanwhile I'm grateful to be able to nail a tune at all and I hope my obvious non-americanness doesn't spoil this too much, I tried singing it as straight English folk but it just didn't work.
Anyway, right this moment in time the songs is right, my feet ARE soaking wet from thinking things over but the blue guitar has become a comfort unexpected, as has my old friend, Music, once again.
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Six O'Clock News |
Another sad story from the songs of John Prine. The true tale behind this one
is even sadder than the song, the stranger turning out to be his father and
his grandfather. And unlike the song he found out cos he was in juvenile court
and some prosecutor thought it would be in everyone's interests to reveal the
fact. A pretty awful way to go on.
I don't get the chorus though . . . what is it saying? Is it "terrible
things happen in the world, there's so little time to be kind or good, so lets
not waste it, lets be together, at least through the night" or is it supposed
to be some kind of sinister reference back to Jimmy's conception? I think I
prefer it the first way . . . .
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Speed Of The Sound Of Lonliness |
Not my kind of thing normally except while I was travelling in America I heard this song on a radio or a jukebox or something and its hook line ("You've been out there running just to be on the run") really caught me. I didn't know who it was or anything about it but it stuck with me. So when I discovered John Prine singing "Sam Stone" at the Cambridge Folk Festival (see above) I rushed out to get a copy of Sam Stone and accidently discovered this song! Amazing co-incidences happen, I think, to remind you of your place in the universe . . . Anyhow, its rather a good song too when you analyse it, just get past the shit-kicking country-ness of it and you're there! Well, I am . . .
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