Ghost Song

I'm sure we've all been there. You're doing dishes, doing homework, slaving through that last hour of work or driving en route to somewhere when you turn on the radio and a new song is playing that you've never heard. Doesn't it always seem to be that when this happens the announcer never says the artist or name? Irony shows up in many places, let me tell you!

When you hear that new song for the first time, it's like everything else fades into the distance and you focus only on that voice, those lyrics, that music coming through your radio, each note like a sharper bend in the road, obscuring what lies ahead. It's even better when you like the song. Because then you're scrambling for a piece of paper, trying to contain snippets of refrains or words in your mind, hoping that later on they'll join to fit a whole. There's something exciting about hearing a new song, and in a way, something exciting about not knowing its title or the artist.

Here comes a house analogy! You knew it was coming didn't you? This same scenario happened to me today just hours before. After eating a late lunch coming home from work I was doing the dishes when I turned on the radio that I'd lugged in from my room. I was about to hit the iPod button and bypass the radio when I heard this new voice coming through the speakers. Instantly I tried to place it, but couldn't. The lyrics were the second thing that made me pause. I'm still thinking about them. Usually Sheboygan's only country station plays nothing but the garbage that's coming out of Nashville these days, but this song was different. Later I'll go on Google and attempt to feed it the random lines I gleaned from the song and hope I catch a fish! But if I don't, I'll just have to be tuned in for a while and refrain from playing my iPod continuously.

I never got to that house analogy did I? To me, these undiscovered songs are like the many abandoned houses and barns on the way to my Great Aunt's farm in Upper Michigan. When I pass them I am always inexplicably captivated, for as most of you know, I love abandoned buildings in general! There is something mysterious, something haunting, something fiercely captivating that draws you in, and in turn narrows your world to only that cluster of buildings, those wooden skeletons breathing through nothing but the wind that pumps muddy blood through their veins. I think of the lives that used to live there, the way the buildings are dead but still alive.

How does all of that relate to hearing a new song on the radio? Well...I'm still trying to figure that out. I guess what I can say is, just as an abandoned house or barn makes me stop and draws me in, so does a new song on the radio cause me to falter in my fast pace of life and listen, no matter how faint the call is. The song could be profound like the one I heard while doing the dishes today, or it could be some guy with an accent singing how rain is good for the crops because corn makes whiskey. It's that curiosity of the undiscovered that fuels our full attention to something. Like a tornado funneling all of the storm's energy into that narrow tube, sucking in the air, feeding off of our fear.

Like your tongue traveling to that one rotten tooth in your mouth, I once again find my thoughts wandering back to old houses. Whenever I spot an old house I think of the people that live there, what the house looks like, how old it is...etc. The same goes for a narrow country road branching off of the one I'm driving on. Where does it lead, what treasures lay scattered along its edges like random beads strung on a necklace? When out in the country, if I were to really follow that nagging curiosity within me, I'd be lost before I could count to three! But if you think about, wouldn't discovering new and inimitable things make up for being lost? Because frankly, I would be lost in my thoughts, in the joy of discovery, in the pure rebellion of following that wandering river that at sometimes may run thin, but never dry.

Of course, not every new song you hear will you instantly love. It just so happened that today was one of those times. I'll admit, I'm listening to the radio less and less these days. What is played over the airwaves just isn't country anymore. But you know what? It was my departure from radio that lead me to some of the greatest country artists I have ever stumbled upon. Artists like Patty Loveless, Suzy Bogguss, Alison Krauss & Union Station...etc. It's frustrating how radio holds people back from truly honorable music like the artists I mentioned above, put out. It's like radio has kept all of their listeners in a tight corral whose ground is parched and dusty like a bald man's dirty head and they can't see that beyond the tightly woven line of pine trees is myriad countryside dipping and falling in lush green fields, just waiting for a soul brave enough to break the fence and walk over. I myself have broken free of that corral and never intend on going back! Although, like today, every once in a while it proves that sometimes it doesn't hurt to walk back over to that dusty path of earth and see if things have improved any.

That drive to discover the undiscovered could be applied to music too, couldn't it? Like hearing that new song you instantly love on the radio and then scribbling down a few refrains. Said lines may skip through your head, like snippets of a haunting song drifting to you on the wind through the door of an open church. You yearn to discover the ball of yarn at the end of the string you clutch and then once you do, you find that it's not enough. So you throw the yarn down a hall, down the stairs, and see where it leads you next. For reasons perhaps unexplainable, it's hard for me to let a new artist into my own personal corral of music. It's like all of the artists I already know and love are horses who have been pasture buddies for years, and don't like a newcomer in their midst. They scoff, they balk, they bite, they bully...but eventually, a spot is worked into the group and everything calms down. But if I have to go through that every time I wish to strike out on a new artist endeavor, why not just be satisfied with what I have? In a way I am, the artists I love now have plethora's of music that I enjoy, and I know there's a lot more stuff by them that I haven't cracked the lid on, but what about an artist who's songs I have never heard? If I hear one song by them, will I be willing to listen to others?

I believe first impressions by an artist are extremely important. Take my number one country music obsession, Patty Loveless. I can't recall the first one I heard by her, or even where, but from that moment on I knew I wanted to hear more, I yearned to hear more. And I did! Now I'm slowly building my Loveless album collection as well as exploring new artists that are similar to her. Perhaps that's the key, then. Instead of simply thrusting myself out there, searching for artists amidst the tempest-tossed sea of music, I could travel a familiar vein and seek out new artists that way. Wade amidst the familiar, rather than surround myself with the opposite.

Well, I believe this blog post has been more all over the place than previous ones. As always, I have managed to intertwine houses into the topic but if works, why not? If you hear a new song today, and it makes you pause, think of all of the other opportunities to slow down that you're missing. It could be an abandoned house tucked behind some trees on a country road, a lemonade stand run advertising ice cold lemonade for fifty cents, or even a quaint, small town tucked into the crook of time alongside a busy highway. You may only get a glimpse, may only halt for a few seconds, but just as I glimpse an old house on my way to somewhere, it could be enough to create a story, or anything you want.