The name of each is, a heart-singer, eye-singer, hymn-
singer, law-singer, ear-singer, head-singer, sweet-
singer, wise-singer, droll-singer, thrift-singer, sea-
singer, wit-singer, echo-singer, parlor-singer, love-
singer, passion-singer, mystic-singer, fable-singer,
item-singer, weeping-singer, or something else...”
- Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
Or something else.
They’ve always been there, in my dreams and in my waking, like some caravan of mystic gypsies, showing up with something beautiful, something naked, something holy.
The music.
Always the music.
The riffs.
The poetry.
The operatic, smoky-roomed jazz, sexed-up back-seated blues and front-seated, come-to-Jesus gospel.
Always the music, the songs, the tunes, the vibes, omnipresent and omni-elusive.
And the singers.
The singers who brought it with swagger, sweat, and conviction.
Frank and Dean, Sammy and Aretha, Smokey and Sly.
Dylan, Plant, Janis, and Marley.
Rev. Green, the Stevies - Wonder and Nicks - Tony and Tina, Otis and Teddy.
Sirs Mick and Paul, Little Richard and the Big Bopper, Bruce the Boss, the Purple Prince, Diamond Dave, Saint Marvin, the Lizard King, the Godfather of Soul, Ziggy Stardust, Queen Freddie, and Elvis - always Elvis - the King.
The singers, always the singers.
It was summer, early ‘70’s, and my cousins - Paul and Steve - were in town.
My uncle was a missionary in Puerto Rico, so I’d only see my cousins once every few years when the family was home on furlough.
Paul and Steve were everything I wanted to be - older, cooler, street and worldly-wise, both with the long hair I desperately wanted so I could be the rebel without a cause I imagined myself to be at the age of 11.
We were pirates.
We were gypsies.
We were rock stars.
We were...well, truth be told, we were just boys getting into trouble or girls, not in that order, but usually all at once.
My cousins were “influencers” long before the digital age.
They introduced me to the wonders of ginger beer and pork rinds, bacalao and puka shell necklaces, swearing in Spanish and the art of rolling your own - cigarettes or whatever else they smuggled in from the island.
Missionary and pastors’ sons - pirates, gypsies and rock stars indeed.
Paul introduced me to the guitar, teaching me a version of “malagueña” that I still play note for note to this day when I want to sound quickly and vaguely impressive.
Steve sat me down one lazy afternoon and said, “You have to hear this”, and he dropped the needle from an old record player onto a tune from a just released album called “Tea for the Tillerman”.
“Longer boats are coming to win us
They're coming to win us, they're coming to win us
Longer boats are coming to win us
Hold on to the shore, they'll be taking the key from the door...”
We sat for hours listening to that album by singer-songwriter Cat Stevens.
We dissected every phrase and lyric, studied the cover art and liner notes, and solved the world’s problems with the wisdom only adolescent boys possess.
“Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world
It’s hard to get by on a smile...”
I taught myself every song on that album by ear, and after a year or two I had a pretty good Cat Stevens repertoire and impression going.
More importantly, that afternoon listening session with my cousins launched me into a lifelong romance with writing songs and singing.
I filled notebooks with song lyrics that filled my head.
I sang in the shower, in my room, in friends’ cars, and in the hallways at school.
I wanted to find a voice, my voice, a voice that would set me apart.
It might not be the silkiest or the shiniest, the most controlled or the best trained, but at least my voice would be my own, and in my mind anyway, unique and unforgettable.
From that sunny afternoon lazing on a bed with my cousins and Cat, to that moment just months ago in the office of my cardiothoracic vascular surgeon when he said, “You could lose your voice”, I’ve searched for that voice.
Singing, speaking, writing, but always rooted in a singer’s lyrical turn of phrase, I’ve searched for that voice.
A voice.
My voice.
In these times of social and racial unrest, people look for a voice, a singer who can calm the chaotic waters.
“Nothing to fear but fear itself”.
“We shall overcome”.
“I have a dream”.
“Lean on me”.
All songs in some fashion or another, all lyrics phrased to a song or spoken word.
In a recent article from the Albert Einstein Institution titled, “198 Methods of Non-Violent Action”, the act of singing is wedged between vigils, marches, and pilgrimages as one of the most effective means of non-violent protest and persuasion.
Finding a voice to diffuse the unrest.
King David, the original bluesman, cried out in the sacred Psalms, “God leads out the prisoners with singing...”.
Singing breathes freedom.
Singing breaks chains.
“I can’t breathe” is the loss of a voice.
“I can’t breathe” is the loss of freedom.
“I can’t breathe” is the loss of life.
Breathing is singing.
Singing is life.
When my body fell ill, I lost my breath and I lost my voice.
When my corroded carotid got fixed, it left my voice unfixed and in a shabby state of affairs.
My lungs are still rebuilding and re-envisioning the scales and shimmer of a this new normal voice I’ve been given.
I still sing - maybe croak - in my shower, in my room, and in my car.
But I didn’t lose my freedom and - thank God, the angels and saints living and departed - I didn’t lose my life.
Maybe my body and my voice are a microcosm of the culture we live in now.
A shabby state of affairs, unfixed and a little croaky, but rebuilding and re-visioning the scales and shimmer of a new normal.
“Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world...”
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