Dubuque, Iowa: wherein gh wonders about old songs in a new life as we saunter around the continent on these Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Crucible
So, you write a song for the right reasons, you record it, and give it as many chances at a “meaningful life” as you can. But you can’t control outcomes, so the songs and the recordings float out there in the wide, wide world beyond your reach and influence. Best to leave them alone and to practice letting go.
Maybe one day –unknown to you– they make their way into someone’s life and weave themselves into a story not of your making. They adapt and transform, and maybe you hear about it in an electronic note or a handwritten letter, or a voice from a crowd or a chat after a concert. Suddenly, this old thing has a new meaning and you stand there amazed by it, humbled by it, moved by it, mystified by it, grateful to it.
I’ve been wondering lately why I haven’t been rushing to play solo shows, why I’ve thrown my lot in so emphatically with Nights of Grief & Mystery for the time being: I think it is because the Nights give the songs a container to be in, a context where they mingle with other elements and undergo some kind of alchemical transformation, become a part of something unseen when I wrote them. The collaboration has us going through my song catalog to see ‘what-might-fit-where’ in the Night, and so some songs get a new lease on life while others see the light of day and get put tenderly away again because, though it is clear there is a good line or two, they don’t quite stand on their feet when it comes to carrying a heavy load. There are more of these than I care to admit, but I’m grateful to those songs, too.
The Nights run hot…what drives them has nothing to do with entertainment and everything to do with everything that is not distraction. Thus, the ego is burned away from the songs over and over again and all that is left is the ineffable intention I had when I wrote them. Sometimes the song and the singer are left standing. Sometimes they are cinders.
Turns out Nights of Grief & Mystery is a crucible.
gh
Gregory Hoskins 