through
the night....how many all night drives, slapping yourself in the face
to keep awake, holding your head out the window hoping the cold air
would wake you enough to keep going....going where?....to another town,
another stage, another empty room....but, then, one night magic
happens....the band is just incredible on this night....the guitar just
seems to tune itself....the songs pour out in an endless stream....the
crowd loves you....they clamor for more....the notes on the high
melodies come without strain....the low notes resonate deep in your
chest...when you let the band take a break, you just don't want to stop,
so you sit on stage, just you and your guitar and sing some of the
songs you have been writing in those Hotel rooms and never sharing with
anyone til now, and it's so good that the band starts easing back on
stage to play along, even tho they have never heard these songs, and it
is a magic night, truly, for the music carries you away from your road
weariness...and you never want it to stop.
That magic is the adrenaline of a performance high. There is no drug as powerful, no drink that can touch it and the only cure for it is……age. And still the ancient performer longs for it again….craves it as an alcoholic craves a drink….a junkie craves a fix. Oh, sure he knows he can still find a stage to cross, and the songs are still in his memory…his fingers can clumsily find the chords….he can find musicians willing to back him up….and some of the crowd will still love him or her, because in their mind they are hearing the young performer that they remember from the glory days….so, on some special night, the old singer reaches down in the depths of remembrances and finds the notes, the tones, the magic….and once again they are young, in their prime, totally in command of a song, just as if it never went away….yes, magic can still happen, even when you think the performance fire has gone out in your belly…it’s there! I can feel it!
It’s called music…and music knows no boundaries….music is made to share, and experiences of life give a special meaning to the words, and only one who has lived the life, traveled the roads, felt the pain, the loss, the joy…and came out on the other side, the old performer with life lines in his or her face who steps up on the stage with a slight wince of an aching joint….still has something to say in a word or song, because they know what it took to deliver that music all those years. As I wrote in one of my songs long ago, “She only came to hear the music, where the singer sang the songs he’d written, soft and low. She only had a glass of wine, turned her face away so tears won’t show. For something in those melodies brought back feelings that she thought were gone….thought were gone….she only came to hear the music, and listen to the singer of the songs. She’d been hurt so very bad, nothing left in love to look forward to. And I’d been down so many roads, I had nothing left but just a few old blues. But something in the way she listened, brought back feelings that I thought were gone…I thought were gone….yes, she only came to hear the music…and listen to the singer of the songs.”
Ya’see, performance is a two way deal. And the magic nights have to be shared…audience to singer….singer to audience…it’s a charge of electricity between the two ….the singer gives, and the audience sends it back…the intensity builds, and the result is …..Magic.
It's like my old pair of boots, pretty ragged and worn out, but, man, they feel so good when I put them on. -Stan
That magic is the adrenaline of a performance high. There is no drug as powerful, no drink that can touch it and the only cure for it is……age. And still the ancient performer longs for it again….craves it as an alcoholic craves a drink….a junkie craves a fix. Oh, sure he knows he can still find a stage to cross, and the songs are still in his memory…his fingers can clumsily find the chords….he can find musicians willing to back him up….and some of the crowd will still love him or her, because in their mind they are hearing the young performer that they remember from the glory days….so, on some special night, the old singer reaches down in the depths of remembrances and finds the notes, the tones, the magic….and once again they are young, in their prime, totally in command of a song, just as if it never went away….yes, magic can still happen, even when you think the performance fire has gone out in your belly…it’s there! I can feel it!
It’s called music…and music knows no boundaries….music is made to share, and experiences of life give a special meaning to the words, and only one who has lived the life, traveled the roads, felt the pain, the loss, the joy…and came out on the other side, the old performer with life lines in his or her face who steps up on the stage with a slight wince of an aching joint….still has something to say in a word or song, because they know what it took to deliver that music all those years. As I wrote in one of my songs long ago, “She only came to hear the music, where the singer sang the songs he’d written, soft and low. She only had a glass of wine, turned her face away so tears won’t show. For something in those melodies brought back feelings that she thought were gone….thought were gone….she only came to hear the music, and listen to the singer of the songs. She’d been hurt so very bad, nothing left in love to look forward to. And I’d been down so many roads, I had nothing left but just a few old blues. But something in the way she listened, brought back feelings that I thought were gone…I thought were gone….yes, she only came to hear the music…and listen to the singer of the songs.”
Ya’see, performance is a two way deal. And the magic nights have to be shared…audience to singer….singer to audience…it’s a charge of electricity between the two ….the singer gives, and the audience sends it back…the intensity builds, and the result is …..Magic.
It's like my old pair of boots, pretty ragged and worn out, but, man, they feel so good when I put them on. -Stan
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