Comfort Music

A few weeks ago Nathaniel Peters asked :

Do any other blog contributors turn to particular books or music for consolation or jubilation? Do people find a generational difference between those who choose books or those who choose music? Any thoughts?

I’ve already weighed in here with a book recommendation: Read the entire Patrick O’Brian canon. What about music? Well, if you told me three years ago that my answer today would be “bluegrass” I’d have thought you mad.

But then, at age fifty, even though I had never played any kind of musical instrument and despite the accusation of my son (a bit of a musical snob) that I was “musically retarded,” I decided to learn to play the banjo. Part of my reason for trying the banjo had to do with the comedian (and accomplished banjo player) Steve Martin, who once said: “You can’t be sad playing the banjo.” (The other reason had to do with the fact that my wife and youngest daughter wouldn’t let me buy a Harley-Davidson, so I got a banjo instead. But that’s a long story).

In any case, I probably wouldn’t even mention all this in polite company (as the bumper sticker says, “Paddle Faster, I Hear Banjo Music”), but my long-suffering diligence in trying to make something like music come out of my banjo was validated a couple years ago when I learned that the infamous Robert George is a good banjo player himself. Like that old time religion, if it is good enough for him, it is good enough for me.

Now, much to my family’s dismay, if you play the banjo you have to listen to a lot of bluegrass music because it helps you figure out how the thing is supposed to sound and basically how to get something like music out of the banjo. (Banjo joke: What’s the difference between a South American macaw and a banjo? One is loud, obnoxious, and annoying and the other one is a bird.) And when you listen to bluegrass music, you can’t help but be struck by the contrast between the joyfulness and hopefulness of the music, even when the lyrics are downright depressing. (Bluegrass joke: “If she’s still alive at the end of the song, it ain’t bluegrass.”)

Anyway, my favorite example of rather depressing lyrics within the context of rather joyful and even hopeful sounding music is a bluegrass classic called “Old Home Place.” The song, originally performed by the Dillards , was made famous by the classic rendition of J.D. Crowe . The chorus is a lament:

What have they done to the old home place
Why did they tear it down
And why did I leave the plow in the field
And look for a job in the town

And the final two verses:

Well my girl she ran off with somebody else
The taverns took all my pay
And here I stand where the old home stood
Before they took it away

Now the geese they fly south and the cold wind blows
As I stand here and hang my head
I’ve lost my love I’ve lost my home
And now I wish that I was dead

Not exactly the Pollyannaish stuff and you’d be hard-pressed to imagine in the abstract how you can take these lyrics and make it seem joyful and even hopeful. But they pull it off. If you doubt it can be done, check it out for yourself and pay particular attention to the banjo solo at the beginning of the song.

So, for both jubilation and consolation music then, make it bluegrass. Kinda like the Psalms, I think.

Finally, you might want check out Robert George’s rendition of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” here . Wish I could do that!