Merciful Measures

As I muster some strength for the first time in almost a week (my nemesis, severe bronchitis again) and try to repair the damage done, I find myself thinking about my friends and family, and where I’d be without them. The illness took its usual toll—two canceled shows, a week’s worth of income permanently lost. More than that, it reminded me again of the fragile nature of the creative life, a life entirely dependent on the Mercy of the artist’s fellow man.

Music is a frivolity, a leisure activity for most, a foolish passion for a few. Those of us who pursue it full time used to require patrons and benefactors (factors of benefit to the arts) on whose Mercy we relied entirely. Things haven’t changed that much for most of us dreamers and n’er-do-wells. In spite of the jabs from critics and ill-read commentators, we aren’t all comfortable and fat, rolling in our royalties and scoffing at working class society. We are struggling to pay the bills just like everyone else, and in tough times we are often forgotten while the layoffs and plant closures affect larger segments of society. We feel for those who tumble into a life of insecurity in ways others probably don’t unless they’ve been there themselves. It’s unimaginable to many—a life stripped of steady income, no healthcare insurance, no sick pay, no disability protection, no pension… I feel for you, good, decent working folks, I feel deeply. I am with you.

Mercy doesn’t seem like Pity to me, although the words are often used interchangeably. Pity implies something wrenched from the gut and bestowed with some hidden disgust. No one wants it. Mercy, on the other hand, is a gentler thing. It’s the response to a supplication for energy, faith, empowerment, a request for spiritual or physical support, the kindness of kin. Mercy we all need.

Perhaps my biggest regret is my youthful attempt to circumvent Mercy; my thinking I could do this alone. It wasn’t resentment exactly, I just don’t like debts. But one thing a man learns as he gets older: life is full of debts that go unpaid. Mercy is the thing that allows him to go scot free sometimes.

My good friend and brilliant songwriter Nathan Bell goes back to a steady day job soon. Having come from an artistic family and lived for long periods of his life as a creative soul, he knows the job is a blessing he can’t refuse. His wife and children depend on it. My wife and children depend on me, too, so I must depend on the Mercy. I must hope there are those who will, out of kindness or out of a sense of duty to principals, choose to pay for downloading my songs even when they can get them for free on Pirate Bay; who will pay to hear my concert even when they can hear music that’s just as good by staying home and flipping on Austin City Limits; who will reschedule a show when I’m sick and not complain about all the ticket refunds; who will forgive me for all of the insecurity I lay upon their shoulders when they could have so much more in life; who will send me an email just to tell me what a song means to them; who have made, and will continue to make my journey a little easier and a little brighter just by being part of it.

For the merciful measures of each and every one of you, my deepest thanks.

A Song For Father's Day

Sorry for the lack of postings recently, I've been very busy promoting the new CD and on the road a lot this spring. Here's a little tune I wrote with Jack Sundrud and Helen Darling that's appropriate for this weekend. I hope it's a small consolation for my absence from the blog!

It's All (Almost) In A Name

I'm a sucker for a compelling song title; "Moon River", "Peel Me A Grape", "Jesus, The Missing Years", "Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine", "Into The Mystic"-- these titles and countless more just begged me to drop the needle or push play when I was studying how to be a writer. It always seemed to me that an indelible song title was like the smell of one of my grandmother's Sunday afternoon dinners cooking in the kitchen. It was a portent of good things to come. I remember being disappointed when one of my favorite artists released a new record and I went excitedly to the store to scan that glossy, sealed LP and there were no interesting song titles on the back. It struck me as a missed opportunity. Sure, I sometimes bought the record anyway, but something always made me wary when the songs were called "In The Night", "With You", "Now And Then"... I was pretty sure those songs just weren't gonna kill me, and they rarely did.

I think a song title should catch my eye and stir up some curiosity. That's what the artwork on the LP/CD was all about, too. Except for some of the Indy stuff, lately CD artwork consists mostly of airbrushed photos of the stars. Who cares? Song titles and artwork play similar roles-- they add a physical dimension to the music, like handles on a dream. You can argue all you want about how many great songs there are with banal titles like "Yesterday", "I Need You" and "I Will Always Love You", and for pure emotional connection maybe it's hard to top those songs (I like 'em too). But in this era when no one has time to listen to everything, and when song titles sit on the computer screen like so many innocuous text messages, wouldn't it be wise to consider the intrinsic value of a song title?

A song title makes an impression, as does any name. Actors used to choose theirs very carefully, and with good reason. It was part of the image and mystique. A song is an entity with a life and a mystique all it's own. These days especially, the title can and does affect the song's life whether we think it's fair or not. I admit, a little guiltily, when I scan a track list at itunes or Amazon I click first on the most unlikely song title I can find. Why? I figure if the artist can pull that one off I might like what they do with an ordinary title, too.

If I write a 500 page book called "Headache", will you want to read it? That's how I feel when I see a song called "Love" (see the latest Sugarland CD). On the same CD we find "Keep You" and another called "Very Last Country Song". Glancing at the latest Rascal Flatts CD I see the first two cuts are “Take Me There” and “Here”. My first thought is why weren’t they able to find a song called “Everywhere” to round out a trilogy? And on the same disk there's a song that exemplifies what passes for a clever/cool song idea today “Bob That Head”. I would have at least put that one on the CD as “Bob, That Head”. Whether you think those songs are good or not really isn't my point. My point is, there's a song called "Tornado Time In Texas"** and you have to go cut the yard before it rains. Which song do you want to hear?

And what about the sheer fun of some song titles-- remember singing along with "Jumping Jack Flash it's a gas, gas, gas" at the top of your lungs? Somehow I just can't get the same thrill singing along with "Get My Drink On".

Let's agree on one thing: the charts (not just country) for the most part look pretty boring these days whether they sound boring or not. "White Horse" stands out as a striking image in a song title, and not surprisingly, it's a pretty good song, too.

I'm not being cynical here-- I'd still only write an idea I believed in and connected with from the heart, but some words and phrases are just more alluring than others, aren't they? When it comes to evoking the mysterious, the romantic, the playful, the profound, it's all (almost) in a name.


**"Tornado Time In Texas" by Guy Clark


copyright 2009 craig bickhardt

Song, Come Free Me

Music is life. Music is sustenance, oxygen, bread, water, faith and nurture. We all know how it feels to starve on the fat of some success or to thirst in the fountain of a few good times. Success and good times do not satisfy the soul’s craving for music. I’ve prayed for a little music, but never for success or good times. When the music is gone, as it often is for a season of fruitlessness, I turn to stone inside. Suddenly I don’t even know what’s wrong with me, but something is, terribly. Then the sweet confluence of events allows me to find, no, discover it again, and I’m resurrected.

This week was like that. After preparing my income taxes and getting caught up on (and in) some other distasteful duties, I was practicing for a weekend of shows in Massachusetts. In the process I’d lost all track of time while I was singing, singing for the pure selfish pleasure of it. You can reach a point when music, and life, finds the zone. You realize you want the rest of your days to be joyous like that. The world can wait. Song, come free me.

A photographer was at my house later that same day shooting some stuff for a newspaper story. I stopped singing while he was there. At one point, noticing my suspiciously barren walls, he asked where my songwriting awards were. “In boxes in the basement,” I said. “Go get them,” he said. “They’re packed away. All wrapped up,” I said. Without a pause he insisted, “Good, I want to shoot you unwrapping them.” I had a knot in my stomach as I reluctantly brought up a box that was in plain view. I unwrapped one award and it looked sordid in its tacky aluminum frame-- a piece of paper that acknowledged something I’d accomplished in 1995. I felt estranged and oddly ambivalent about the thing. In fact it immediately made me want to forget about 1995 and get back into the singing zone. That frozen moment from my past was simply the symbol of a point of discovery no different than the one I’d made earlier that morning: music is life, and I need it now.

This morning here on Cape Cod it’s overcast and chilly but there’s an unsettling beauty in the scenery that feels like a series of minor chords in a slow, exquisite melody. Even now the music is alive and moving around us. Strewn ice age boulders are the whole notes. Long beaches are the glissandos. Ragged clouds are the tension, and rain on the windows is percussion. A gull riding a thermal is a violin…

Sometimes we share the life within the music. Last night I sang at O’Shea’s. It’s been a long winter for many of these native Cape folks, and spring fever was burning in their blood. The whole room was energized with single-organism purpose like bees in a spring hive. We sang and told stories for two hours, ending with some sing-alongs as my old friend Randal Patterson joined me on mandolin and harmonies. For a few short hours of music we breathed in the joy of song. We forgot that we’re almost constantly engaged in our common struggle to overcome all that crushes life, while we felt the spontaneous bursting of moments into bloom.

At one point I sang a tune that I co-wrote with my friend the Irish mystic and songwriter extraordinaire Jimmy MacCarthy. The chorus says, “The more I know, the more I wonder, from the setting of the sun to the dawning of the day”. What little I know is that music is life, life is the moment, and the moment is, or should be, wonder. We were made to sing, all of us, and more harmony is never a bad thing.


copyright 2009 by craig bickhardt