This album tells many tales through some intricate tribal riffing and a flute that somehow manages to merge quite well amidst the sometimes confusing musical conundrum this tree is. And that got me thinking: fusions and jazzy progressions, tribal riffs and flutes, guitar solos and piano-driven ballads; it's fine, really, and I do enjoy it, but at the same time it all makes incredibly weary of the complexities thrust upon music making and the overall tone of everything and anything with the word "progressive" attached.
I guess all this is just a silly intro to the whole thing. I might as well have started with: "So, a couple of weeks ago I bought a guitar."
Actually, forget all about "The January Tree" (subliminal messages, people; buy - buy - buy...); let's go with that instead: I did get a guitar, your very own Ki picked it for me (let it be known at this point that I know three chords, maybe four if we count the thing you do with your pinky coming down from D) and I am now determined, with his help, to learn how to play it properly. Not really becoming a guitar player, I fear that's already beyond my meager still-untested skills, but rather master the subtle art of getting away with lazy strumming. (Let is also be known that I am that, through and through: lazy.)
The reasons behind my recent slight change of heart from keys to strings has many roots, but most of all is the feeling of freedom, of sheer possibility, of opening to some unseen grace that only comes to you if you sit in silence and turn all the gadgets off.
Possibility of writing a song with only two chords in it and still being amazing.
Freedom to wander in B for as many bars as you want. Maybe - I'm just saying... - maybe even throwing a harmonica in for good measure.
And as I prepare to turn 30 a bit later this year, I start thinking: am I getting old? Am I losing the will to jam? Am I beginning to find "Overture 1928" tiring and Deconstruction unbearable? I am, for that matter, trying to eat in a more whole and healthy way... Am I growing so far apart from cheeseburgers that not even Devin makes it appealing for me? Hmmm...
Maybe I just miss the simplicity of past days. The simplicity and nostalgia and overall melancholic but also spacious feeling of turning into words and sounds what's already inside, instead of overloading everything with mathematical arrangements and crazy time signatures.
Songs like "Sweet Baby James", for example.
Now, I'm not James Taylor's biggest fan, to be perfectly honest, but there's an undeniable touch of majesty as well as painful simplicity in Sweet Baby James (both the album and the song with the same name). Whether it's the echo of some prelapsarian stage, rooted in some unseen, unheard of Age of Innocence, or the coming to terms with growing old (he was 18/19 when the album came out), there is something here that surpasses what I get when turning to, say, Symphony X.
And yes, i just kind of compared "Sweet Baby James" to Symphony X. Blasphemy, blasphemy!
And it may be kind of unfair to be choosing someone who is by any standard a folk icon, so let's turn to, say, Gene Clark. Yes, he's also a big name, especially with the Byrds, but it's his White Light that gets me going, if you know what I mean. Nudge, nudge.
Slightly uncelebrated in his day, songs like "For a Spanish Guitar" or "For Tomorrow" carry such a deep, shy, strong sense of humanity that sometimes it's actually hard listening to them. It's both vivid and sober, meaningful, wholehearted. Sure, it's a break-up song, but it's not just any break-up song. It's poetry. It's catharsis. Or maybe it's just beautiful.
On this particular topic of relationships (fruitful and filled with sad, tragic stories but also, fortunately, amazing songs), there's also one that always makes me think "Man, I want be this guy when I grow up...". I'm referring to, of course, Roy Harper's "Another Day".
Now, let it be said that I love Harper's work with David Gilmour, just as much as I love what both Kate Bush/Peter Gabriel and 4AD's This Mortal Coil have made with this song, but none of these have the same despondent beauty this one has. It's not just about lost love; it's about life as a whole. I've always pictured this song like an actual painting, a still life, a photo, highly voyeuristic, taken through an open window into someone's home, but that could have just as easily been taken against a mirror. And the punch behind the words "another day", both passion-driven to move and desperately stuck, hits me every time. Quite literally.
Finally, one that usually gives mixed feelings.
Neil Young's hardly an easy guy to describe, some saying he's even harder to love. But somewhere between all the rocking in the free world and his later years, for me Neil will always be deeply rooted in the simplicity of some of his tunes, arguably reaching their ultimate perfection in "Harvest".
Now, at the time, this was battered to smithereens by the critics, labeled as "too much of the same", plain and boring. But not only did it stand the test of time - which it did - it still means something today. You go back and you feel it, you don't just listen to it with joy.
It resonates, it makes your soul sing a bit and your heart skip a beat. Or two, depending on your mood for that day...
As you've noticed by now, this is hardly a list, but rather the most random combination of stuff put together. It's also not a "must listen to" memo, since these are not even my favourite songs within the big "genre" that goes by the name of Singer/Songwriter. These are just songs I love, without any order of preference, class, grade or rating. Just random stuff that sometimes gets me through the day, other times barely allows me to cope with "another day" (pun intentional), but just simple music that makes me think back to when thinks were simple.
And that begs the question: why aren't things that simple anymore? Do we need to keep going forward and do what no one has done before? Do we really need to make music alchemy in the search for the one chord no one has ever played or listened to or even heard of?
Yes, maybe this is all just the ramblings of some dude with too much free time on his hands, but I do look forward to this past, I really do. I do start to look away from JR's Morphwizzes and Samplewizzes and all sorts of "wizzes", into a more rooted way of expression, more simple, less polished. To a music that is raw and untamed and free and pure and whole. Like we are. Or, at least, like we should be. Untamed. Wild at heart.
Technology is here, it's upon us and we're grateful. Let's face it: this post didn't write itself, and I'm most certainly not using a black board and chalk...
But at times it's all a bit too much. I yearn for simple times. I yearn for simple tunes. And quite frankly, sometimes I do get a bit sick of all the computer-driven recording, production, mixing, stages that give us the music we need to live. Because make no mistake: we *need* music to live.
And when it comes to music, I really don't want to feel that way, I want to embrace it. I want to sing my love, my sadness, my everything and anything. In simple ways that touch me and others.
Simple. Pure. Raw. Uncut. Untamed.
So, let's all join hands and pray to the angel of rock: "Please help us attain simplicity. Please give us the will to write simple tunes. And please, don't let us get sick of all these shenanigans..."
(And I *will* learn how to play this one... Won't I, Ki?...)
