Sometimes you forget where you come from but then, there's a song.
On my Facebook page, I follow NPR Music as one of the ways I tap in to my constant craving to be in the know about new music. Last night, they posted a first listen from Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, the latter of which I had never heard until then.
On my Facebook page, I follow NPR Music as one of the ways I tap in to my constant craving to be in the know about new music. Last night, they posted a first listen from Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, the latter of which I had never heard until then.
The album they've posted is very sweet, a collaboration out of love, both musical and the loving coupling of husband and wife. As NPR says, the album is filled with an unexpected "understated, welcoming calm" that maybe is hard to come by in a world that expects anything with banjos to be active and maybe even raucous. The music here had some effect on me, yes.
But, it wasn't until later, after I had listened to the NPR First Listen, and after I had sought more music out by Abigail Washburn that a certain feeling hit me that hasn't in a long time. I found City of Refuge on Spotify, and again, it was so sweet. None of the songs really got me though, not until the last of them which was "Bright Morning Stars."
But, it wasn't until later, after I had listened to the NPR First Listen, and after I had sought more music out by Abigail Washburn that a certain feeling hit me that hasn't in a long time. I found City of Refuge on Spotify, and again, it was so sweet. None of the songs really got me though, not until the last of them which was "Bright Morning Stars."
The song is called by some a lullaby. By others, a traditional folk song which has also been sung and recorded by Emmylou Harris and the Wailin' Jennys. For me, it took me back to a time when I was very young.
I started thinking about church, about my father making a commitment to be with the church when I was nine or ten and about how the music moved me there and how I wanted to sing it, to really be a part of it. That same ache was in me last night, as when I was in that church for the first time. It was like the music had found that yearning, a yearning which I didn't know was there or even quite what it pertained to.
There were soft tears, then. That yearning which I am still unable to explain. Maybe this song really captures that yearning. I think that for me, it does. Its simplicity and beauty. . .its references I don't even yet understand. . . . The bright morning stars, maybe all of us, rising as the daylight breaks. . . . And right now, literally, the day is breaking. I am listening to this song again and again. What a beautiful song.
