"...please tell me who I am..."

"...There are times
When all the world's asleep,
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man.

Won't you please,
Please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am."
- Roger Hodgson

For months now my husband has been recommending that I listen to the songs of Joe Crookston, an emerging folk artist he met last year at the NERFA (Northeast Regional Folk Alliance) conference in New York.  I have so many artists that I love…and the space of silence (though reading this blog you would never believe it) is prime mental real estate for me as a spiritual healer…that I didn't take him up on it. 

But Jeff, who is not at all pushy, pushed…a few times.  One morning, while I was making breakfast, he brought in a small CD player and asked me to listen to a song.  It was beautiful, but the lyrics were so deep that I couldn't seem to focus on turning the veggie bacon and plumbing the depths of their profound meaning at the same time.  I said something like, "Lovely…", which it was…musically, and then turned back to slicing avocado and crumbling feta for the omelette.   So the artist's name never connected to the song for me.  Just a lovely listening experience…nothing that really poked at the soul.

Then before he left for the International Folk Alliance festival in Memphis last week, Jeff pushed one more time.  I came into my office after seeing him off, and there on my computer keyboard was a CD.  Right there in the middle of the place my fingers spend a lot of time on a daily basis.  So I sat down and rather than pop it into the CD drive of my laptop, I set it aside and got to work.  Over the course a the next two days I moved it from one spot on my desk to another.  Until one morning when I remembered my rule about not handling a piece of paper more than once…part of my simplicity movement...and was caught in the headlights of my own playbook for living simply.  I had it in my hand ready to put it in yet another corner when I realized that if I was going to obey those rules I either had to pop it in the CD drive and listen to it…or, I had to get up from my desk and climb the stairs to Jeff's office and put it on his desk.  The easiest thing to do was to listen to it.  So in it went. 

I immediately went back to work before the first track started.  "Hmmm…a very interesting instrumental  opening…" me thinks as I continue with the work at hand.  Then the first moment of voice and lyrics burst through the guitar strings and I broke into tears.  A sob caught in my throat and I was stunned by the power of what I was experiencing. 

This was such a surprise.  I hadn't even heard more than the first six words of the lyric yet, but something deeper in the performance, Joe's thoughtful use of a familiar 1970s pop/rock hit in such a sober, gentle -- spiritual way…resonated deeply.  I was amazed, in an instant, by the way such meaningful lyrics were reclaimed for me …when set to music I felt comfortable with.  And I was surprised that a song I had heard hundreds of times on the radio had lyrics that I had never really thought about…at all.  Each of these things hit me at once and I felt a dozen emotions flood my heart. 

Supertramp was a group that my singer/songwriter/folkie genre-loving younger self just didn't connect with.  They were flashy, played instruments that were electric…electric guitars, electric keyboards with that buzzy sound, lots of drums and loud banging...and they just weren't Dan Fogelberg, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne-ish enough. 

I was a folk snob.  And because of it I missed out on really listening to songs that had themes of longing and hope…messages that might have reached me like the voice of an encouraging friend in those lonely days when the search for a "self" was fraught with doubt and confusion.  It makes me wonder how many of my life's "angels" were missed because they didn't come in a package I felt comfortable with or weren't coordinate with how I wanted to be seen, or who I wanted to be seen with…or listening to.

Joe Crookston's version of "The Logical Song"from his new CD "Albert Baker Charley & Dog", is hauntingly sober and beautiful. I have listened to it many, many times over the last week.  The lyrics though, came from the heart of that young rocker, Roger Hodgson, the lead singer from Supertramp.  Realizing this I want to know him better through his music, so I've now downloaded Supertramp's version too.  I love them both.

The 1970's folk-loving hippie version of me who wouldn't listen to Supertramp 30+ years ago is reclaiming herself as someone who is open to new genres of music -- and the messages she may have missed out on -- each time I play this 70's Supertramp rendition of "The Logical Song".  And the 50+ year old hippie-woman-me who still loves, loves, love folk music is grateful that Joe Crookston could gently serve up Hodgson's message in a way that unlocked the doors of my heart to a new/old angel message of longing and desire for identity and purpose…finally.  It is helping me remember that the search for "who am I?" is timeless and universal.  I love that Mary Baker Eddy points our lives in a new direction when she addresses this question in a way that is radically empowering:

"…rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response:  I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing.

Human reason becomes tired and calls for rest.  It has a relapse into the common hope.  Goodness and benevolence never tire.  They maintain themselves and others and never stop from exhaustion.  He who is afraid of being too generous has lost the power of being magnanimous.  The best man or woman is the most unselfed."

So…as I listen to "The Logical Song"…whether it's Joe's version or Rodger's…I am reminded that there is work to be done.  Yes, I am able to impart truth, health and happiness…this is my reason for existing. 

Fashion designer Dianne von Furstenburg, in a recent advertisement for American Express shared, in talking about her life's journey:

"I didn't really know what I wanted to do
But I knew the woman I wanted to become…"

I, too, know the kind of woman I want to become…open to new ideas, accepting of others regardless of packaging, generous, kind…able to impart truth, health, and happiness…since, as Eddy says, it is my reason for existing.  I am a work-in-progress.   I guess it's never to late to become a closet Supertramp fan...even for this dyed-in-the-wool folkie.

I've included the full lyrics to "the Logical Song" below in case you want to read them. 

"When I was young,
It seemed that life was so wonderful,
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.

And all the birds in the trees,
Well they'd be singing so happily,
Joyfully, playfully watching me.

But then they send me away
To teach me how to be sensible,
Logical, responsible, practical.

And they showed me a world
Where I could be so dependable,
Clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times
When all the world's asleep,
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man.

Won't you please,
Please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.
- Roger Hodgson

Thank to Roger and Joe...between the two of them...I think I'm beginning to get the message...
Kate