John Fahey :: I am the Resurrection
Fall isn’t the time we usually talk about resurrection; everything’s folding up now, getting tucked away. But it’s also the harvest, what was buried or sheathed is brought to a new life as sustenance for other living things. So I guess we’re on the cusp of a resurrection even if it’s not the Jesus kind. There are no lyrics in this song, and I’m not sure I’d feel the same weight of I am the Resurrection if it wasn’t titled so. I’ve been trying to figure out what this little ditty means to me beyond conjuring up the stuff I learned in Sunday School. Among other things, I’ve decided it sounds like a year in the midwest. I am the Resurrection quietly plods and plucks through winter and into April when the frost breaks. The tempo picks up then slows again when we realize we still can’t leave the house without a coat. In June, things really start to move, ratcheting forward through summer until abruptly ending in a deliberate and exhausted October that quickly resolves to fade back into winter.
Ah, the old familiar cycle of life. Summer came and went too fast, but I’m itching for some crisp new school clothes and cider. The air is charged with promise, the promise that things will change. For better or worse that remains to be seen. Our financial institutions are crumbling, this year’s presidential election is more about who made the most gaffes than anything real, we’re in an endless war and the weather is going totally nutzo. Our small seasons, our puny planet: if it doesn’t work out for us, maybe we can be resurrected in spirit, we can be fuel for the next cycle until the universe sets itself right. But before I get too doom and gloom and start preparing myself for the apocalypse, I know I can put on a sweater and soothe my spirit with a little steel-strung guitar.
I am the Resurrection (3.2MB MP3)
John Fahey (wikipedia)
johnny said on wednesday, october 01st, 2008
anika said on wednesday, october 01st, 2008
thanks. i feel better already. ps: know anywhere we can play in hay and drink cider and do a maze made of hay bales and smell dead leaves?
damnit. i was gonna post The Yellow Princess.
A. I love that he went by BLIND JOE DEATH.
2. He’s Mystical and Folky. That to me is the best kind of guitar work.
Third, I was once accused of trying to sound like Fahey, even though at the time i’d never even heard his work. Which i think makes me a genius. I’m a genius…YAY!