Songs of Hope 4

Friendship. In these times when the political and social world seems to be tilting in ways unexpected, keeping the light of friendship and encouragement burning with people you know and trust is a subject upon which to reflect, and reflect again.

Kathy Mattea has said that she likes to find songs which keep teaching her lessons, and that she has found that this one does. Not the most cheerful way to suggest that you think about friendship, perhaps, but it is a place to begin. Mattea has recorded the song on her album Lonesome Standard Time. Bill Cooley, who plays with Mattea in this video, has a n excellent album of guitar music out called In Search of Home.

Carrie Newcomer says that she was thinking about all the times someone has encouraged her when she was in a hard place when she wrote the song You Can Do This Hard Thing. As she often does when writing songs, poems, or essays, Newcomer draws on her personal experiences to make her points. From them she creates ideas and images that become universal. Newcomer has recorded the song on her album The Beautiful Not Yet.

As she makes her life as a professional musician, Cathie Ryan well knows about leave taking, and about trusting that you will see friends again and you will keep in touch with each other though time and distance may separate you. She often chooses this song, So Here’s to You, to bring her live performances to a close -- well, almost.

As she does in this clip from a show at the Great Lakes Folk Festival, she often pairs it with the witty song Johnny Be Fair and a set of reels and jigs to send her listeners home in a light hearted manner. That’s also an act of friendship shared from performer to audience. Ryan has recorded So Here’s to You on her album Somewhere Along the Road. You’ll find Johnny Be Fair and the tune set on her recording Through Wind and Rain.

You’ll enjoy other music from these artists as well. Here are stories I’ve written about some of that
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain
Kathy Mattea: Calling Me Home
Music & Mystery: Conversation with Carrie Newcomer Continues
This story is part of a series on music for these times. Here's another in the series Songs of Hope 3

Fire photograph by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

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Music, friendship, and the turning of the year

At the turning of the year, it is often a time for reflection, for thinking back and thinking forward. Though times may change and at times friends may come and go, still the value of friendship and the memories of times shared with good friends are keeping things.

Music to go along with thoughts on the subject of friendship:

As Eddi Reader points out in her introduction to this song, Robert Burns may be best known for his love songs. Burns wrote about quite a few subjects in his life though, and friendship is one. Take a listen to Eddi Reader with the lively song Willie Stewart, which she has recorded on her album Eddi Reader Sings the Songs of Robert Burns,

Whether for a short time or a long one, one thing that comes along with good friendship is parting and spending time apart. At times the mingled joy of realizing how much you love someone and sorrow at parting make that moment of leave taking the hardest part. That is captured in the song The Parting Glass. Cara Dillon songs it here. She has recorded it on her album Hill of Thieves and it also appears on the collection Celtic Cafe from Putumayo Music.

Carrie Newcomer explores another of the many aspects that friendship may take in her song The Gathering of Spirits recognizing that there is mystery in it as well as, perhaps as part of, love and lasting connection. One of my favorite lines is “... and we’ll take up where we left off when we all meet again.” Newcomer chose The Gathering of Spirits as the title of one of her albums, and the song also appears on Betty's Diner: The Best of Carrie Newcomer

To close this meditation on music and friendship I’ll send you back again to Eddi Reader and back again to Robert Burns, with a song that, among other things, connects people the world around at New Year’s time. Take a listen to Reader’s reflective take on the song, which she has recorded on Eddi Reader Sings the Songs of Robert Burns.

Photograph by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Emily Smith, Jamie McClennan, and Robert Burns
Eddi Reader sings more of the songs of Robert Burns
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain
Celtic Cafe at Wandering Educators

If you'd like to support my creative work at Music Road,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Music, autumn, and a cup of tea

Late autumn, early winter: as the winter holidays and the turning of the year approach, it is a time of many activities, a time of bustle and a time of quiet, a time of solitude and of being with others. It is also a time of year when it’s good to take those moments, expected and unexpected, to have a bit of solitude, or perhaps a quiet loving conversation with a friend.

A good cup of tea helps, too. A musician I know says that though she has to be involved in a lot of social networking on line in her profession, a big pot of tea, a good friend, and plenty of time to talk make up all the social networking she really needs. I think she has a point.

A sunny winter morning in Massachusetts is where this cup of tea found me, as I’d arrived a bit early for one of those good conversations with a friend. Both the time for reflection and the time for conversation were blessings on that winter day. I wish both of these things for you as this holiday season begins, and continues.


Naturally, I think music goes along with this idea, too.

Harper Tasche is a musician from Washington State whose reflective recording Long Night Bright Star goes especially well with this time of year. It’s an instrumental recording, mainly harp, with music that gently yet powerfully suggests the season. If you’re in the mood for Christmas music, you’ll want to listen for Tasche’s album called Wintermas Moon, too. Click on the link in the title to hear a bit of it.

You may also wish to see
Music Road: Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: winter music

A way to support: you could

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Creative practice: friendship

Friendship, or lack of it, often comes into play in Irish and Scottish music. Sometimes that’s in the form of an emigrant missing home, or those friends left at home saying good by; at other times it’s in the form of one giving the other advice -- good or bad, as the song unfolds -- and at others it’s a friendship that turns into love. Friendship is a balance point in the lives of those who make music too. The creation of music requires solitude, and silence, and being alone with yourself. Sharing music is done in company, and the music itself sometimes changes with that. Not everyone who listens to a song will become a friend of the song writer, nor should they. There is a connection there, though, and a good distance, as well. Each comes to the song from a different place In the connection and safety of true friendship, something that lasts beyond the length of a song, there is space where each person can be who he or she really is and be accepted at best and at worst. There is a saying in Irish: The heart of a true friend makes a good mirror - Déanan croí fíor cara scáthán maith. The heart knows its own home. That’s a fair space from which to create, too. music to go along with these ideas Music Road: eddi reader, willie stewart, and the search for haggis Music Road: creative practice: autumn to winter Music Road: cathie ryan: the farthest wave

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creative practice: being there

These past several weeks, I’ve been watching some of the speeches at the US Democratic and Republican party conventions. One of the ideas that struck me, across both conventions, had not to do with politics, but with music, or rather, with the nature of public performance. As someone who’s worked in television and radio for a number of years, I have a good eye for what’s scripted and what’s not, what’s meant for the larger audience and what are those moments less public, though played out in the public arena, those quick glances, those moments of expression and word and gesture that mark a connection other than the public audience one. Beyond the speeches about and from the Clintons, Obama, Biden, McCain, and Palin and the questions and controversies about their personalities and policies, I saw several such moments at these gatherings.

I’ve often been among the listeners when my friends play music, sometimes in a small club or at a kitchen table, sometimes in a symphony hall or to a festival audience of thousands. I know my friends are working -- usually I am too -- and it’s rarely a time for much in the way of conversation. But those waves from the stages, those shared glances and smiles and gestures do matter, I have come to learn over the years. They are part of keeping friendship going, for one thing, and they are support, on both sides, for another. It’s an act of confidence, and of humility, to offer one’s music to a roomful, or a stadium full of strangers, and it’s not any easier when the room isn’t so full, either. Never doubt the power of connection.


for music to go along with this, I'd suggest that you go support your favorite musician at a live gig, or write them a note to let them know you remember them out on the road.

you may also want to see

Music Road: now playing: The Best of Friends

Music Road: creative practice:witness

Creative practice:witness

speaking of change, autumn, and friendship, as we have been here lately, a bit of lyric to go along with all that.



you never know who'll be your witness
you never know who grants forgiveness
look to heaven,
or sit with us...
Carrie Newcomer
from Betty's Diner

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now playing: The Best of Friends

The Best of Friends

A book, this time, rather than a recording, though we’ll get to the music in minute. Ginger Mauney is a film maker who lives in Africa; Sara James is a news correspondent who lives in New York. They met when they were twelve, in Virginia, but their paths diverged, time and time again over the more than thirty years they’ve known it each other. This book is a shared chronicle -- they alternate writing chapters of their lives and bits and pieces of how having that friendship has been vital to them both. It’s more narrative than philosophy, a story of the individual circumstances of two friends who trusted and accepted their friendship even when they couldn’t or didn’t see each other for long stretches of time. It’s a story of the grace of friendship, really.

What does this have to to with music? All of us who make, follow, and trust music end up on the road a lot, with best friends in far flung places, friends who, like James and Mauney, may not be there always for the big or small events that people generally think of as building and maintaining friendship, but who continue as friends in practical ways as well as friends of soul and spirit. This book is a fine reminder to be thankful for that grace, and to nurture it.

music for these ideas:

Carrie Newcomer has a good song with a vivid image of friends called Three Women, which was first released on her recording called Angel on My Shoulder and is also on Betty's Diner.

Tommy Sands’ song There Were Roses, recorded by both Sean Keane and Cara Dillon, sets the troubles in Ireland in the context of friendship.

Cathie Ryan’s Coaineadh na d’Tri Muire. Lament of the Three Marys, on her The Music of What Happens CD, is about mother and son -- Christ and his mother Mary, actually -- but holds good insights on connection.

Follow On, written by Paul Brady and recorded by Danu on When All Is Said and Done, is another good look at the lasting power of friendship even when faith is all that’s there to keep it going.

-->If you'd like to support my creative work at Music Road,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.