SNOW
There is a DVD Troubadour Blues with songs and interviews with great singers and songwriters like Peter Case, Chris Smither, Dave Alvin, Mary Gauthier, Slaid Cleaves, as well as many others. It is a touching and interesting film.
Interesting when you hear these songwriters speaking about their life as troubadours, and the way they write their songs, each one in a different way. From digging deep to get “that one line”, up to catching the song in the air at the very moment it is floating over you (This is Townes Van Zandt’s way). It is interesting to see that many ways can drive you to a good song and each way is great in its own way. And touching…as each of them talk with simplicity and humility in front of the destiny that made them singers, songwriters, and troubadours.
As the film was ending, I noticed a singer-songwriter who was unique…not like the others. At least it was what I felt. I didn’t keep his name in my mind. He had long grey hair and in his voice…
Now please let me do a clarification about voice. When I say “voice”, it is not only the timbre, the texture, power, range, and the tessitura. It is mostly how people use their voices, the vibrations emitted in a word, in a line, and in a song. A voice I love is when I feel something through the voice, when a singer I’m listening to gives me a part of who he is, what he is, to be clear: a part of his or her soul. There are singers who have a thin voice, not always on key, but with so much emotion inside that you feel the thrill…and those are the beautiful voices.
There are voices that cover me in a sort of sensuality. I just lay my head against those voices, and let myself be caressed by them. For example Ray Lamontagne, Jeffrey Foucalt, Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac) when he sings live Never Going Back Again, Jimmy Lafave, Ray Lamontagne…oops I already named him. Yes I know! I don’t have yet Alzheimers, I am just listening to another song by him.
There are voices that evoke a color, a smell, a taste, a landscape, a place, an event, an image…and now I come back to the voice of the singer with the long grey hair
He was not yet singing, just talking, when an image came in my mind – something shining. Like for example when the sun is setting over the lake and their are splashes of brightness that run quickly from wave to wave, and you don’t see the color of the lake anymore because you are blinded by the sparkling effect. Or when you walk on a pavement made by granite on a sunny day, and each step you take reveals hundreds of tiny dots of gold on the ground, shiny bright, making the pavement seemingly
And I had a big smile when he began to sing as the sun put shiny spots in his hair and on his cheek. The tuning keys of his guitar were sparkling. After the film I forgot this singer (sorry Sam!) And weeks or months later, I heard that song:
First light city streets are white and pristine
Waiting on the tracks of the early machines
The city is so pretty when the snow falls just at dawn
Hey paper boy how about them Celts
The snow keeps falling thinks its never gonna melt
This city is so pretty
Got a cup of coffee
A Sunday Globe
A table by the window
Watch the plows in the road
This city is so pretty
From ships in the night good sailors from the sea
Walk the streets at dawn
Down on Beacon Street
This city is so pretty
They are so far from home
Snow is deep
The road is long
So far from home
There is a stranger on the street
He is way out of sorts
He says hey mister I’ve come up short
You got any change
The Lord loves a giver I believe
Small change to a stranger
Change on the street
Change to a man
Thought he’d never get beat
There are a thousand ways
A person in the snow gets lost
They are so far from home
Snow is deep
The road is long
Snow is deep
The road is long
So far from home
There is snow upon the ocean
Snow upon the land
Talk about forgiveness
Help me understand
Why I hold on tight
Do not let go
I walk these streets frozen in snow
First light city streets are white pristine
Waiting on the tracks of the dirty machines
First light city streets are white pristine
They are waiting
One after another, the words of this song softly awakened some memories “Yes! I recognize! I recognize this city. This is Nome, Alaska! And this voice? To whom is this voice? I know this voice. I already met this voice.
