D-Squared

This week we heard from an old friend who is enjoying a sabbatical down in Costa Rica with her family. She was innocently reading science papers on “forests, glacial histories, climate change models and shifting landscapes” in the dim light when a fragment of this song suddenly popped into her head. The song was written many years ago on the back porch at the ranch and Karen knows that place. More importantly, Karen knows the place in the heart where that song comes from. She emailed asking me for the lyrics and made my day. I thought I’d put `em up here in case that happens to someone else – in case that ever happens to me. Cuz this one always puts me right back on the porch.

if I could move real slow
I could hear the rocks talkin
if I could move real slow
I could see the trees walkin
if I could move really slow
I’d listen to the dead talkin
talkin to the rocks
walkin with the trees
comparin family histories
talkin to the rocks
walkin with the trees
listen to the whistlin of the souls in the leaves

if I could move real slow
I could hear the rocks talkin

For several years we’ve been hearing good things about the Granite Creek Vineyard and Winery in Chino Valley. They have included us in their summer concert series this Saturday, May 23 from 1 to 5 PM. This is sort of a casual sit around outside in a beautiful place – (Read on …)

One of the benefits of my part-time job is that I get to listen to Bob Edwards (of NPR fame) on Sirius XM Radio. The other day I heard his interview of Bela Fleck, the banjo player who burst on the scene with Newgrass Revival years ago and has been re-writing the banjo rulebook ever since.

The interview had less to do with Bela’s ability to play jazz, Bach, and previously unimagined improvisations on an instrument usually associated with people who are missing teeth than it did with the origin of the banjo itself. Having spent several years touring and playing to hundreds of thousands of school kids where we inquired at every show whether anyone could identify what continent the banjo originated on and never received the correct answer – I’ll grant that I have more than a layman’s interest.

The banjo comes from Africa, at least the precursors to it’s current form did and it came across the Atlantic with folks who were brought to this country as slaves. So Bela decided to go to Mali, Uganda, Tanzania and The Gambia to explore the origins of his chosen instrument and in the process he discovered a plethora of banjo-like instruments and some astonishing musicians and music.

He has documented his musical journey in a film, Throw Down Your Heart, and the soundtrack CD includes some astonishingly beautiful indigenous music recorded in the field with 21st century sound equipment. Bela accompanies many of these pieces and the result is not unlike Paul Simon’s Graceland, David Byrne’s Rei Momo, or Ry Cooder’s Buena Vista Social Club although the results seem even more organic.

The CD is currently available and the film is being screened around the country. He is also organizing a US tour for some of these amazing musicians. If you are a banjo fan, I don’t see how you can live without this record. If you are a world music fan, a folk music fan, if your musical taste extends beyond the pap of American Idol, it is you will love this music. It is haunting and rhythmic and rooted to the earth.

Check it out at www.throwdownyourheart.com and discover a world smaller and even more vibrant than you imagined.

Spring took one look at winter
Then crawled back in her hole
It’s wet and it’s cold out there
I just don’t want to go
Let somebody else be in charge
Of making the wildflowers grow
They still lie waiting
But the Rockabye tree is
All covered in snow
And when the bough breaks
The baby’s bound to go
Down to the mud and the blood
And the tears that flow below
They still lie waiting
Spring nestles quiet in her keep
Where the roots run dark and deep
Spring is fast asleep

I confess, having grown up amidst citrus orchards in Phoenix, Arizona, that the scent of orange and grapefruit trees in bloom make me horny. It is the smell of love to me. I don’t recall ever actually having made love in an orchard but I did a lot of early, hopeful exploring there and that’s almost more potent.

I was tutored in love by amazing women. I realize that we were often learning the mysteries together but they taught me to see in the dark. I have no idea what they learned from me, you’d have to ask them.

Man offers the seed of creation, woman nurtures seedlings that produce fruit and this is the magic that turns the world. It’s also what most songs are about.

God spoke to Adam
And God spoke to Eve
God spoke to the Virgin Mary
He said, y’know girl you just gotta believe
God must’ve talked a lot back then
But he don’t say boo to me
I still lie waiting
But love speaks softly
When it calls you by your name
It’s so easy to miss the meaning
Or pretend it’s just a game
But if you refuse to listen
You’ve got only yourself to blame
Love still lies waiting
While Spring turns over in her sleep
Her dreams are fairy green
But it’s only a dream

I am lucky that my wife grew up in the same town, had some of the same experiences, and responds similarly to the olfactory cues of citrus blossoms. I am even luckier that, when the women of my past show up, my wife shows them love and respect for their contributions to the man I became. Of course, she also knows I have great taste in women.

Twice this March, women who have been exceedingly important in my life reappeared. One at the Desert Botanical Garden’s Chihuly exhibit, the most astounding union of art and nature I have ever personally witnessed. I thought the same thing the first time I ever saw her. The other one showed up at the Glendale Folk Festival where I sang this song, Spring, the best song I have ever written. The blossoms were just opening and the smell nearly knocked me down. So did she.

Down by the hard road
Where the wildflowers grow
I look at them in wonder
Even though I know
Someone planted them here
Not so long ago
They still lie waiting
Waiting for a footprint
Waiting for a sign
Waiting for a raindrop
Or a little ray of sweet sunshine
Or maybe a bee will fly by
At just the right time
They still lie waiting
Spring yawns and peaks out of her hole
Looking for her shadow
Did she see it?
I don’t know

I am the groundhog’s shadow who learned to sing and I owe debts I cannot repay. I am a lucky little rodent.