The Hearts Behind the Voices

It is one of the casualties of the digital download age for music: liner notes. Inside those cardboard album covers in days long gone, LP’s were routinely slipped into paper sleeves on which were often printed details of the album tracks – lyrics, sometimes, performing musicians, studios used, producers, and perhaps most interesting of all, the actual songwriters from whose heart and mind and pencil those songs had actually sprung. Sometimes the name of the writer was also the name of the performer printed on the cover of the album, but only sometimes.

When CD’s replaced LP’s, the print got smaller but the information often expanded. Those little booklets frequently jammed into the jewel case cover added pictures, stories, expressions of thanks from the artists and all kinds of things. And through the years, through the morphing media, I have gratefully read it all.

But digital downloads only rarely bring with them this supportive background information. What you get is the song, the performer’s name, the name of the album, and some genre classification that is usually worthless. Who the musicians are who actually make the music; whose technical hands have crafted the finished product, and whose musical passion and genius actually spawned the song are invisible.

I thought of that again last night as my brief trip to Nashville afforded one more chance to get to the Bluebird Café – that somewhat legendary “listening club” that showcases songwriters singing their creations. On two of the three evenings I’ve spent there in the past year and a half I have heard songs I recognized, though I recognized none of names of those performing. Top forty songs; country and pop.
One of last night’s performers has written movie songs, TV theme songs, and a laundry list of miscellaneous pop. Both of the others have clearly had their share of radio exposure as well, though through songs less familiar to me.

Listening to them – appreciating their music if not always their rather pedestrian voices – I was reminded how 2-dimensional I tend to see the features of life around me. I forget that these people even exist – the ones who actually create this stuff I come to love. The recording artists get all the attention – and I do not begrudge them their fame. They, after all, color the notes and shape the sounds in all the ways I come to like – and purchase. But without the likes of those I heard and appreciated all over again last night the “stars” would look and sound pretty silly. There is a reason, after all, why they buy someone else’s songs. And, of course, there is a reason why these writers are selling their songs to others. Theirs are not typically the voices we routinely want to hear.
There is, in other words, this wonderful synergy. Three-dimensions – the width and breadth of the sound, but also the depth of all those factors and talents underneath. Singers – songwriters – sometimes the two combined – producers – technicians – etc.

And it was a joy last night to honor and treasure those foundational ones – ordinary looking and sounding people quite different from the flash and fizz on screen and video and major contract – more routinely behind the scenes. Thanks for the songs given birth in your hearts, and for the many ways they come to grow in ours.

Keeping Quiet in Nashville

"It's not about you." That is the amazing message reinforced everywhere you look in Nashville's Bluebird Cafe. "Shhh!" It's their trademark. It's not only posted everywhere around the room, we learned it the moment we walked in the door of this haven for singer/songwriters who audition for the chance to try out their material. We started to tell the hostess we didn't have a reservation when she put her finger to her lips and hissed, "Shhhh!." She motioned us to follow her to a couple of seats and an evening of charades ensued to order , to ask for a refill -- anything that happened to come up. Sign language. Pointing. Nodding. Anything that would work. Because it wasn't about us.

What's "going on" is the music, and patrons -- while obviously welcome -- are there to listen. This, according to their own description, is a listening room," where "quiet is requested at all times during a performance - which is why our slogan has become "Shhh!" You are welcome to drink and eat with us at any time, but if you are looking for an evening of conversation there are more appropriate places in Nashville."

It's almost shocking in this self-serving, self-absorbed culture that such a place could survive. Everything, after all, is always about us. Me, my needs, my desires, my convenience, my rights. If I want to talk on my cell phone while standing in line behind you, get used to it. If I want to change lanes where you happen to be driving, move over. If I want to talk...

...well, not at the Bluebird Cafe. This is about music and those who make it -- or at least trying to. Some, over the course of the two evenings we left our conversation at the door, were better than others. Some I can't wait to follow their careers. Others are not quite ready to give up their day job. But all of them deserved -- and received -- our listening ears. They are what it is all about: imagination and emotions and poetic turns of phrase; putting ideas together and melding them into melody, threading the mixture through a voice and a guitar and finessing what comes out. I envied their courage, their determination, their lack of inhibition, and their discipline.

And if I didn't enjoy every song, I nonetheless stayed quiet. It wasn't, after all, about me. It was about music and dreams in the making. And if we had had another night to spend in Nashville, this is where I would choose to be quiet.