Your hear a song and think, without hesitation...that you've heard it before. You've heard it your entire life. The tune has been around forever. That melody has been floating around the universe for millions of years just waiting for humans to show up.
This idea pops into my head occasionally when a song resonates very strongly with me. With Roy Acuff's "The Precious Jewel," the resonance is so strong that I get that feeling every time I listen, almost like it's the first time. This particular version finds Charlie Haden's bass carrying on a beautiful conversation with Pat Metheny's guitar. You can hear the friendship between the two men.
Last night, me and TheWife™ were sitting out on the back porch, enjoying the cool breeze and the silhouettes of the bats diving against the fading western sky. The cool and quiet seemed especially nice contrasted with the ugly heat wave that brutalized us earlier this week. We chatted a little but mostly let the music and the twilight flow over us. When "The Precious Jewel" came on, the sky seemed to open up — to the immense past and equally infinite future. That's an abstraction that I can't put much more detail to at the moment. Let's just say that we've been going through a lot recently but have managed to take pleasure in the smallest of victories. A few minutes of togetherness, music, and visual calm means a lot to us.
So not only was the song new again, it seemed like it had been waiting around for just that little moment. 'Victory' might be too aggressive a description for all of this. Still, I guess I'll take it. It would be unkind of me to reject it, seeing as how it's been millions of years in the making.
Article comments
1 - Jordan Richardson
Beautiful stuff, Mark. I always enjoy reading these.
2 - Mary K. Williams
nailed it.