I have not come here to testify
About our bad bad misfortune…
The cigarettes are passed between us as we listen to the guy on stage. Old, black, spry, the singer is a frenetic one man show. Across his chest is a bandoleer of harmonicas and he blows into them for hours without missing beat. It’s a sight to be seen. Whiskey is poured and the glasses practically empty themselves.
And I ain’t here wondering why…
The guitar player plays the standard patterns. Pentatonic scale. Key of B. It sounds a lot less mechanical when he does it than when I do. The drummer feeds off of the guitar. He keeps the beat but isn’t a slave to it. The bass player is a cute younger woman whose fingers manipulate the strings with ease. The songs range from funky soul bits, to standards. Their version of Hootchie Kootchie Man is amazing. The crowd sings along. We’re halfway through the pack and probably two thirds of the way through the bottle.
But I’ll go on
And I’ll be strong
The conversation’s weighty, but it’s easy going - two people who don’t have a lot of pretense with each other. Maybe not everything that needs to be said is said, but everything said is understood. Sometimes that matters more.
The harmonica is a beautiful instrument. The sounds it makes lie somewhere between a human’s crying and and a guitar’s scream. It’s soulful and mellow. It’s upbeat and a call to arms. The range of emotion this guy conveys will break your heart and piece it back together in the same instant.
We listen, amazed. It’s midnight before we know it. The night’s just beginning though. The heavy lifting’s been dealt with. We’ve been reminded that there are people who’ve seen worse than we have and lived to sing about it. We stumble into the street. Tonight we’ll check out that other club. It’s smaller, with less room to roam for either your body or your mind.
It’s just not my cross to bear…
