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August 15, 2007
Writing is a mirror. Singing songs I have written five, ten, fifteen years ago (or more) brings back a physical and emotional memory of where I was when I wrote them. Some of these songs resonate even more now. "Love's A Long Road Home" is back in the set list, as is "Gift of Age."
In 1995, I wrote a song called, "Life Gets Real." We were doing the final mix on April 19, 1995, when the news came of the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Along with the rest of the sane world, I was shocked and heartsick. There had been other tragedies and horrors during my lifetime: the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon; earthquakes; the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. But this bombing seemed to be the opening curtain on an unpredictable era of violence and destruction.
Life gets real.
We live in a world where zealots blow things — or themselves — up, or worse: crash trucks into restaurants or airplanes into buildings.
On August 1, a freeway bridge I have driven many times collapsed into the Mississippi River. A bomb was not detonated; a barge did not hit the structure. A 1,000-foot bridge just gave up, its long center suddenly lying in the murky water. Now, in addition to the other realities of life, bridges fall. Taking for granted the safety of what we once thought solid — roads, bridges or buildings — has become a thing of the past.
In this tragedy as in many others, people at "ground zero" don't ask who you are, what you believe, or where you're from. They help. People lucky enough to get out of their cars following the bridge collapse began helping others to get out of theirs. They began pulling people up from the river, began comforting people who were trapped, assuring them that help was on the way.
I'm keeping a photograph of the I-35 bridge. I'm going to look at the photo and know just how good people can be. That photograph will be a reminder that life does get real and it can get real in a hurry.
*****
Hard to believe but a harbinger of summer's end is about to appear: The Minnesota State Fair. Last year, live, on the air from the Minnesota Public Radio booth at the fair, I composed my fifth Fair song, "Somewhere at the Fair." It's been recorded now and will join the other four on a CD. I will be on MPR's The Morning Show on August 24th, so stop by and buy a copy of the Fair CD (on a stick). We think it's more fun than a corn dog on a stick, pork chop on a stick, deep-fried candy bar on a stick, walleye on a stick, cheesecake on a stick, or spaghetti and meatballs on a stick (no kidding) — and a lot less fattening.
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