Category: Music

Noisy Bars

On By Daniel DavidsonIn Music, personal2 Comments

​Some years ago, my mom took me, and my younger sister, to a fantastic Josh Turner concert at the Ariel Theatre in downtown Gallipolis, Ohio. Josh and his mates put on a wonderful show, and we all had a good time singing and dancing. We spent some time after the show visiting with the band members outside, and all in all it was an incredibly fun night. Somehow I ended up driving down old 2nd Avenue a night or two later, and seeing the same theatre venue now all empty, silent, and cold. The contrast struck me on a deep level emotionally, and I never forgot the way I felt that night. It was like the time I walked alone on a snowy night with the cold wind biting my face, and I saw the light of a living-room window pouring out into the winter dark. I thought of the happy warm family inside.

It’s been 18 years since that night, and now I find myself in Salt Lake City for a professional conference of veterinarians practicing bovine medicine. I’ve lived in Idaho, Utah, Canada, Ohio and California in the time between that Josh Turner concert and now, and I even spent a summer in southern Ecuador. I found bars to be too loud, mostly unfit for having a discussion, and overall not the most enjoyable activity for me in each of those places.

I went to a reception event at Keys On Main one night this week. It was prepared by Endovac Animal Health for veterinary students, practitioners, and affiliates. It was loud, warm, and packed with people inside. Sitting at a table, near the dueling pianos, I could sense the vibration of every keyboard percussion through my fingers on the tabletop, I could feel the floor slightly trembling from the nearby dancing, and I could pick out the raised voices of nearby students singing along with the Styx cover. The memory of the cold theatre came rushing back to me, and as I held my pint of Blue Moon, I all at once saw the entire experience differently.

All of it – the chaotic noise, the trembling floor, and even the radiating heat from all the people nearby in the small space – it’s a celebration of Life. It’s just like my 18 month old son, dancing by squatting up and down, throwing his hands in the air, and walking in circles every time he hears music. The lifeforce we have to be able to do such things as sing a song, dance around a floor, or play a keyboard loudly, is an incredible gift. We are in an enormous elemental universe of stars, supernovas, and black holes and yet somehow, in this moment of space and time, we humans are together, in this room, feeling the energy of one another and contributing our own energy to the group. We are all aware, deep down, of the inexorable coming of our death, and maybe Dilan Thomas could have written another verse to Do not go gentle into that good night, one about dancing and song, as a way to rage against the dying of the light.

Story in Song

On By Daniel DavidsonIn LifeThoughts, Music, StoriesLeave a comment

Bob Dylan was able to tell an entire story in just a few lines of verse. It’s an absolutely beautiful thing. Take the first verse of The Times They Are a Changin.

A repetitious and technically basic guitar strumming carries the song. It is just fast enough to make you to cause some internal tension, but it never sounds rushed. He calls out far and wide “come gather ’round people wherever you roam” and asks them to reevaluate their position in society and in life “and admit that the waters around you have grown”.

He spends just a little extra time to draw out his question – “if your time to you is worth saving” and follows it rapidly with his own answer “then you better start swimmin or you’ll sink like a stone”, but this game of question and answer is just a lead up to what he really wants to say. “The times they are a changin”, which he accents with a blast from his harmonica. This is the centerpiece of all of the song.

That is a truly outstanding level of storytelling. Bob is compelling and leaves you with a chill, and the entire song is less barely over three minutes long.

However, today I also want to talk about another artist, and a specific song that has blessed me many times, and just yesterday I was singing it very loudly in the truck. It has such a well-crafted first verse, that can be written in two distinct, yet equally true and beautiful, ways.

Consider the first verse – “I am weary with the pain of Jacob’s wrestling, in the darkness with a fear” – describing the state of being and then referencing this very famous story immediately gives us an entire perspective on that state. Not just weary, but weary as one would be after years of self-seeking and deceiving family members, years of living in fear, working incredibly hard for a goal only to be conned out of it by his own uncle. And then the next line in the song is magnificently written – because it can be written in two distinct ways and either way is completely accurate.

Option 1. “But He met the mourning-wounded with a blessing, so in the night, my hope lives on”. I take this to mean that He (Christ) met the mourning and wounded man (Jacob) with a blessing. As you know in the story, Jacob wrestled all night long and would not let go of Christ, and his (Jacob’s) hip was thrown out of socket and he received a blessing, a new name, from Christ. Therefore the hope of the songwriter lives on because even though he may be wounded and mourning, Christ will bless him in due time.

Option 2. “But he met the morning, wounded, with a blessing, so in the night my hope lives on”. Reading it this way, I can see a focus on Jacob wrestling all night long, and not letting go. He (Jacob) made it all night long, and even though he was wounded, he received a blessing when the morning came. In this case the songwriter takes heart in remembering the suffering of Jacob, now and his hope will live through the night because he has the example of Jacob to remember.

I don’t know which way Andrew Peterson thinks of when he sings this song, but it blesses me as it is.

Mandolin Orange

On By Daniel DavidsonIn MusicLeave a comment

I recently heard Cavalry, by Mandolin Orange, for my first time. I listened to it dozens of times over the next couple weeks.

I didn’t grasp what the meaning of the song was, but I felt it. I wasn’t even understanding all of the words, but the message was powerful anyway. I was moved by listening to Mandolin Orange, and I’m not sure why.

Today I heard them while listening to a recent episode of Live From Here, and they were show stoppers. When they sang, they had the whole place captivated.