Just over two years ago, I sang solo an Iron Maiden song, Blood Brothers, slowly strummed via my cell phone to provide the instrumental, as the exact moment my dad was laid to his final rest under clay.
A few weeks ago, one-man-band professional Jeff Loven, one of the best musicians I have ever heard and one with whom I have sung for 25 years, strummed the favorite Johnny Cash songs his father loved in the background for the last hour his dad had on this earth, the troubles of which Cash so frequently sang.
Certainly, one of them was Hurt, perhaps the most well-known song of Cash and the last one he recorded before his death, and about the fact it was nearing, so even more noteworthy. It is a number that is one of my faves to give that twisted twist of a word and which I have so poignantly sung many times, a couple of them, accidentally, since Jeff’s dad passed – and then I became aware of that fact.
And now as of yesterday, the duplicity, or should I say trifectedness, of such memoir-building at a In My Time Of Dying nursing home by a quasi-professional quartet.
So, with this resonance, is it any wonder that that Jeff appeared to me in a dream just days after his father’s death and in it spoke at length to make amends for a hurt in the recent past that was really no hurt at all, and I in turn – all while still in the dream – told him that it was OK, that I completely understood.
Back over Memorial Day weekend, Jeff got the band back together, as he was so fond of saying, and brought up some of the usual people plus a few new ones for cameos, and I was in a noteworthy sense left off the list. This was a reunion performance after almost a year of absence. I was stung a bit, but wrote on this blog that I could understand the choice since it seemed the torch had been passed and based on artistic stylings and sensibilities, with the rancor of what I typically sing, it made sense.
In the dream, for what it’s worth, Jeff drew close, looked me in the eye and said that he was sorry for not bringing my up, like he has done so many times for the past two-plus-decades, and offered to make sure he would the next time around – on Labor Day weekend when he makes a return for the umpteenth time to Dick’s Bar.
No I don’t know if Jeff ever read what I wrote earlier, or if this was an act of the collective subconscious or unconsciousness that was manifest, or if we will for sure sing like in the past The Clash again, much less our also Hendrix and All Along The Watchtower, like over Labor Day, but what I do know was this was a reconvening of an old friendship that never really lost traction in the first place.
Like between father and son.
And I will now go into the many similarities between the songs played at the respective funerals.
It was agreed that at my dad’s funeral, that what I should sing would not befit a church service, but rather have me done later at the cemetery. I originally had opted for the slightly-toned-down version of Amazing Grace, the Dan Vasc metal-esque-version where he goes up in scale and — gasp! — doubles the octave twice, a bit too much for Lutherans, although as such in songwriting Luther had his day. We all ended up agreeing that I should hold off onto when — Gethsemane-esque — they laid the dirt in finality, lastly upon him.
I had time to practice beforehand and while doing so listened moreso than sang, to get my adapted version right. Still, I was uncertain. I would have to get the timing of the hit go function on my cell phone just right, and this being YouTube hope they would not play any political ads first, and I announced at the gravesite that those gathering might have to sit through this first, then sing loud enough just over the muted portion, but not too loud for what was being done the next plot over …
As we left for the funeral, I was still nervous, as I had never sung Blood Brothers live before. When there, I was almost skipped over by the officiant, until a relative notified him on my behalf that he had missed a part. So I was on. I noticed through the accompanying instrumental intro, that the same relative said something to the person next to her, like where is he going with this, as the intro want into its second stanza.
When I came on, I thought I noticeably butchered the main and most meaningful line, stumbling at its words thrown fast at you, of the song, but then recovered, which was important to me as I had given this big buildup to my family about the, broader in metal, notes I could hit. This particular song was written just before the band had earlier gone on tour and the lyricist’s father died, so aproppo. This was a remembrance to him. I skipped the last two verses about the world in dismay and pondering what life really is, but added in that he did not feel a need to live life on the edge.
Here is the applicable, as I adapted, song intro:
And if you’re taking a walk through the garden of life
What do you think you would expect you would see
Just like a mirror reflecting the moves of your life
And in the river reflections of me
Just for a second a glimpse of my father I see
And in a movement he beckons to me
And in a movement the memories are all that remain
And the wounds are reopened for a time
We’re blood brothers
He’s the strong one
Like Our Father
We’re blood brothers.
Here’s to you dad, and Jeff’s dad, too. If only he knew, and as I believe in the concept of a soul, I’m sure he does, that I had eulogized him through the form of a heavy metal band! Even though I thought I really butchered his tribute! But I love the fact that in my ad lib, Like Our Father, refers back to the band’s classic Hallowed Be Thy Name.
But back to Hurt, Cash recorded this song famously, as he did notoriously My Own Personal Jesus, right before death, following the passing of his wife four months earlier. The songs were written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and Depeche Mode, respectively. The former deals with a man who has lived a full life now coming to an end, and reflecting back on it and the choices he’s made, good and bad, and now coming to grips with it all. In the poignant video, raw and largely uncut, there are many images of The Cross and at the end, a Last Supper with his hands shaking as he pours the wine, and then his closing of the piano lid for the last time.
In the version I sing, I amp up what Cash did, where he dramatically builds tempo, and volume, to the point of near explosion. If only I had captured that better in my rendition of Blood Brothers. I’m sure Jeff did in his multiple Cash recountings.
On the subject of death, we just lost drummer Frank Beard of ZZ Top — a band of many long beards, as shown in their videos — and as my wife reminded my when penning a Christmas post Jesus had a beard, yes, but was also The Bread, as in The Bread of Life, fitting for a group and a genre with whom there are so many fitting songs that are positive and touch on Christ. Out the other night I saw two men who could be The Bearded One Or More, as far as length, but one of them must have dropped the stick. Meanwhile, the surviving members are left with the unenviable task, seen by so many groups of late, of deciding what they will do in his absense, get a replacement and carry on, or totally honor his legacy and bow out.
Tim Curry made it further than Meatloaf, but still, the Rocky Horror Picture Show will not be the same without him, so my one take when I went out with the gonzo gang and was put through the paces, back in college days, will have to make do.
And last The Queen of Country, and not just music, Dolly Parton is also lost to us. Reports said that she was a giving soul and went out of her way to help others so they could also benefit from her rags to riches story, a tattered coat of many colors, the tags being bits of cloth not the price ones. Clearence for sure. My driver last night reflected on that, as well as a local, I’m assuming, report that Parton had also benefitted the north country. I myself have been very moved by her song Jolene, where she is conciliatory to The Other Woman, beautiful as the sun, who has stole her man, (imagine that), even to the point of negotiating with her. Shows a giving spirit. At a local nursing home where I know residents, her most noteworthy songs were played back to back the day after the death, 18 of them counting. The radio I swear doubled down on that. I never have been too big a fan of breasts Dolly’s size, prefer something a bit more understated — that word comes up again — but Dolly rocks it with that look, even if country in a big way.
This woman, in her death, has even stolen the show from Ozzy, and the fact that even bridges and the like are now being named for her is fitting because she brought other people into country and 9 to 5 and bridged those gaps, too.
The driver also said that his barber shop quarter — like so much BBQ going around — had in April been, as a first gig, to sing at the bedside of a woman who was near death. This led to a showing by the quartet at both her funeral, fairly recently, and playing some music for another man in a similar nursing home situation.
You might want to reference some of the songs stated in this post, and get even more of the story.