Of the Rain There Is No End...
Mood:  hug me
Topic: Music Reviews and Links

Good evening, all!  Here I sit in a cozy oasis (a/k/a Starbucks, though I wish they had a fireplace, like the Tully's shop near Pike Place Market), in the midst of weeks-long stretches of rain, feeling nonetheless fortunate that Seattle is far removed from the lunatic asylum that calls itself the Nation's Capitol.  I ponder the possibilities of applying for asylum in Canada, Ireland, Norway or even Iceland; there's no normalcy, even in Seattle, when radical right-wingers and the Religious Right act as though they have a blank slate to remake the whole country (without opposition--they think!) in their own unhinged image.  I try in vain to follow my brother's example of scheduling "Trump-Free Days", while fearing what the Orange Administration might get up to if I so much as blink.  Anyway, here are a few songs I have turned to for comfort in past times of uncertainly and insanity...

 

 Some Believe by L.J. Booth: This is the song I sang to myself constantly down in Phoenix, Arizona in 1990-91, to keep myself sane while dealing with semi-homelessness and poverty, and the Persian Gulf War, all at the same time. Mired as I was in staunchly Republican Arizona, struggling to stay employed, practically the only people I felt comfortable with were the local Quaker community, the student peace movement at Arizona State University, and the local folk music community--one of whom was one Art Kershaw, a mysterious figure who played an uncanny acoustic guitar, and who introduced me to this song, among many others. "Some Believe", a Cold War-era composition, captured the hearts of so many folk fans in the Phoenix area, the bunch of us made up a special choral version of the chorus, and never failed to bring it out whenever Art sang it, in any public venue. Listen carefully, and you'll understand.

 

 

Manifiesto by Victor Jara: If you still need convincing that life often just isn't fair, look no further than the life and death of this beautiful Chilean folksinger, theater director and activist. A pioneer of Chile's Nueva Cancion political song movement in the 1960's and early 70's, he was arrested by the Pinochet regime's military, tortured and murdered in the infamous stadium roundup in 1973; and those responsible for his murder were not brought to justice for 42 years. His legacy of original music and activism is huge; and we are fortunate that his songs have been widely recorded and performed up to the present day. But when I taped this song off the radio in 1979, however, I knew very little about the singer, being a geeky 14-year-old folkie still in the learning stages of both guitar-playing and songwriting. All I knew is that the voice and the words were utterly gorgeous, otherworldly so, even if I could not understand most of them. Alas, I stopped the tape before the radio host mentioned the name of Victor Jara, and so I searched desperately for the song and its author for the next 20 years, remembering only the last line, "Siempre será canción nueva." I eventually found the recording that I taped (this is the last song Jara wrote; or one of the last, before he died); but I can only imagine how many other potential songs of his may have died with him.

 

Wheel Inside the Wheel by Mary Gauthier: I first heard this singer-songwriter, and this song, at Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival a few years ago; and it helps me a lot when I'm dealing with the deaths of friends, relatives, and musicians who have meant a lot to me. In fact, it's helping me change my thinking about crossing-over and the Next Reality. On that first live performance I heard of "Wheel Inside the Wheel" (a reference to the Hebrew prophet/mystic Ezekiel's vision as recorded in the Old Testament), Gauthier prefaced the song with it's long backstory as a tribute to her friend, folksinger Dave Carter, who died suddenly in 2002 at the age of 49. I recall that she said it took her well over a year to complete the song; but she was bound and determined to do so, as she had promised such a tribute to Carter's life-partner Tracy Grammer (also a folksinger-songwriter herself). The lyrics describe a traditional New Orleans funeral parade performed from the spirits' point of view, after which the numerous ghostly participants hold a big party at a club called "Jean-Pierre's." My favorite line in the song is the one about Marie Laveau promenading with Oscar Wilde; I'm not sure what Oscar has to do with New Orleans, but I love the imagery regardless. The song is all about reassuring the living that the dead also have a life, and it always lifts my spirits. The CD Gauthier recorded it on, Mercy Now, was the only CD I bought at Bumbershoot that year; and I greatly appreciate the artist autographing it for me after her stunning set.."Roll on, brother, in the wheel inside the wheel..."

 

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