When we pulled in the parking lot, I realized we'd left the bug spray and my daughter's socks and shoes at home, so I had to return home, retrieve the missing items, and return back. We walk to the football stadium, and my son and his friend run off to play. A few seconds later, Foot Foot and I look around, and there stands our son...without his friend. We then find the friend and try to find some food, while I am concurrently trying to ensure my two-year-old daughter--who refused to be held or to hold my hand--isn't trampled by some unsuspecting teenager or overly-rambunctious kid.
We buy my son and his friend some catfish (fried, of course), but Foot Foot doesn't want catfish; she wants a burger. The last time we tried to feed the family at a fun outdoor venue of this type, we all ordered chicken strips and fries, and trying to eat those with dipping sauce and catsup on bleachers became a messy ordeal; so, this time, she wanted something less fussy, thus the burger. Well, we visit about six hundred tents before we finally arrive at one that sold hamburgers. We buy the burgers, and then we have to maneuver through the throng, across the football field, down the sidelines, around the fence, and down the fence to the bleachers. Then, we realize that our daughter doesn't have anything to drink. She doesn't want my Dr. Thunder 'cause it burns her lips, so Foot Foot takes foot. She comes back with a bottle of water, and the boys are now ready to go play. Sheesh. Go play, just stay together.
We finish eating, walk around to the field, and Nicholas's friend is nowhere in sight--they didn't stay together. We find him, and I tell the two boys that if they separate from each other again, that I will impale both of them upon the fence. Nicholas's friend looked at his arms and said, "I don't look pale. I'm not sick. Do I look sick? Are you gonna make me look sick?" Nevermind.
We take our sole lawn chair and put it by the Popeye's tent, and by then, it's a quarter to ten, which means the band on the stage is about to quit, which means that my band is soon to set up. I call my brother and ask him if he's ready to get his congabonga drums from my truck, and he tells me he can't because he's in charge of turning out the lights in ten minutes. Ten minutes? Shoot. That's plenty of time, right?
I guess it's not. That's what he said, anyway. I take a deep breath, walk the half-mile to the parking lot, and then tote two congabonga drums and one congabonga drum stand back the same half-mile to the football field. Right about the time I get to the gates, the lights are out, and there's video of something (I've terrible eyesight) on the big screen, and I hear a woman narrating. I lean the stand and drums against the fence and listen.
The woman describes the life and travails of her daughter, Jedidah Moore Horne. Jedidah contracted cancer in 2002, when she was twenty-five years old. She succumbed to the disease at thirty, two years ago. Jedidah graduated high school with my younger brother, and she was married to a guy I went to high school with.
Jedidah's mother finishes speaking, and then everyone is instructed to take one lap around the track in memory of those who have died from cancer. I pick up the stand and the drums, and I walk through the gates and across the track. Perpendicular. I felt like I was a scab crossing the picket line. I don't know if those walkers gave me any strange looks, but I was imagining that they were. I felt like a pariah. I thought about walking aroung the track with the stand and drums in tow, but doggone those things were heavy. My shoulders and arms were already hurting, and I still had to play drums for forty-five minutes. What to do?
I think to myself that most of those walking have had to carry a much bigger burden with them than the one I'm toting. I think to myself that those that died from cancer had to carry a much bigger burden with them than the one I'm toting. I think to myself that okay, I'm not Christ, and Christ wasn't a drummer, so I believe that I won't be expected to lug my brother's drum around the track to signify or symbolize anything, and if I do, others will only tell me to put them down, or ask to help carry them somewhere, and really, do I want to trouble them, and do I want to cause that much more of a scene...no, I don't. I tell myself that those who died of cancer would have done the same, given similar circumstances. I absolve myself.
I put the drums down near the stage, and I look around the infield for my family, but I don't see them. Now, I don't see well in broad daylight, but in a black night with only bagged luminaries to light the area....I look anyway, and I don't see them. I decide to hit the track. First, if I make a lap, all tinges of guilt from crossing the picket line will dissipate, and second, if I walk fast enough, I may be able to catch my family.
I walk at a brisk pace at first, for about an eighth of a mile, but I'm not seeing them. I need to up my tempo, I tell myself, if I'm to catch them before the lap is over, and I need to catch them, for I dread Foot Foot admonishing me for missing the luminary lap with her. I speed up, and I'm pumping my arms. I must have resembled a power walker. I move in and out of lanes, dodging and darting, and I hear the announcer state that the luminary lap is over. I look around me, and I've made it one-and-a-half way around the track. I lapped people.
I look for my family, and it's useless. Too many people now going back to the infield or walking out the gates. I think I see people near the stage, and those people might be my bandmates, so I make my way over. As I approach the stage, I see my wife and daughter. I ask her where she was during the luminary lap, and she tells me that she and Georgia decided to sit it out.
I catch my breath while the sound guy (my dad) starts playing some music again, and it's some mid-tempo gospel song. I look at my wife and daughter, and I feel a strong surge of love and appreciation and happiness. I soon feel sad, too, for I think to myself that we don't have long, and one day one of us could be here for a reason more immediate than the one that brought us here tonight. I smile. I ask where Nicholas is, and she tells me he's off playing with his friend. He's happy.
Actually, everyone around seems happy. In a way, this much glee is strange. Not five minutes ago, everyone was luminary lapping because someone they knew and loved was dead. It was dark. Candles were lit around the track. Bagpipes were playing. Everyone should've been crying, right? Snifles should have been sounding throughout the county. I look around again, and I see not a wet eye in the stadium. I see laughter, and I see conversation, I see excitment, but I don't see grief.
Why not?
One reason* is the music. Not the bagpipes, no...those are used to illicit feelings of sympathy and respect. The music my dad's playing now: gospel. The lyrics in most gospel songs speak of and promise two things: God/Jesus/Holy Spirit and death (or sometimes it's Death. Capital D. Big difference. Really). How hard is it to feel excited when half of every song is about death? Not any type of murder ballad death, or teenage ballad death, but death of a loved one, of a beloved, of a child, of MFSB....People clap along, sing aloud, and some even groove--to death. Sure, sure, I know, death is only half the equation, but hey--it's still death! Mix half arsenic, half pineapple juice in a punch, and though it may taste good at first....
Ah, but people are used to death, especially people in the Deep South. We know it well. We open our doors to it. It's our neighbor. Oh, it's you again? Sure, you can have a cup of sugar, and brother Bob, too. See you next time!
In service and song, we welcome death/Death. We expect it. Our lives here have been so sorry for so long, that for the longest time, they weren't much worth living. Just endure, long enough for Death to come calling, and he'll take you away from all that you love, all that you know, and you'll be in a better place.
Why is it better? 'Cause God's there? Sure, there's that, but I think--and I could be wrong, but I don't think I am--that most people (eventually) look forward to walking along with Death is because they know that they'll be going to a place where they can see their loved ones, their most beloved, their children, their MFSB, and they can see them and hear them and visit with them and hug them forever and ever, Amen. I know that when I die, I don't care where I go, and I don't care if God and Jesus or whatever deity is there, as long as I can see my wife and my son and my daughter and the rest of my family (well, most of them) and friends (well, most of them) there happy. Or, I could go wherever (Hell, Purgatory, oblivion) and be fine with it as long as I knew that they'd be happy wherever they were, for I know in this life, at many points in their lives, they'll all be sad, and that they'll all be heartbroken, and that they'll all grieve, and that some might not be able to completely get over that sadness or heartbreak or grief. I don't like that fact. It makes me sad. I love my family. If walking with Death means I'll see them forever, then I welcome Death. Take me to the river. Wash me down.
Gospel music reminds and reinforces this concept of the glory of death, and for those not accustomed, gospel music will introduce the concept to 'em on their first listen. Guaranteed. You can tune in to any gospel song, and you'll get the message before the song's half over. In a way, that certainty of song is great. It's like being able to miss three weeks of The Office, watch a new episode, and then being completely caught up to date before 8:15 p.m. CST. Gospel isn't like prog rock, in which you have to listen to half an album (nevermind a song) before the bigger picture becomes clear, or punk or rap where you have to listen to a song numerous times to glean the meaning. Rock, pop, soul, country: their thematic range is deep and wide. With gospel, you know what you're getting every time. Praise music is different, mainly because the music is different, as it dresses itself in different clothes, as often it takes some concentration to tell what is praise and what isn't.
Gospel music is like naked lunch:** you can see exactly the contents on the fork every time. Thematically, it's perfect: its lyrical predictability matches its lyrical promise. You want to be saved, then there's only one way. You listen to gospel music, then there's only one message and only one sound. It's a rousing and celebratory sound, and it's sympathetic, and it's highly rhythmic--even slow gospel songs move. It's participatory, too, as it's call-and-response choral singing comes straight from the Southern Baptist church (and from Africa, too). These elements make gospel music the most reassuring music that's ever existed, as it--if one buys into its message--can take your hand and dance with you until the grief is exorcised out of your body. Even if one does not buy into the lyrical conceit, the music itself still moves, and under its greatest practitioners, still touches and calms and uplifts.
Ian McLagan is not one of gospel's greatest practitioners. In fact, he's not a gospel singer at all. He played keyboards (and various other instruments) with the Small Faces and the Faces and toured with the Stones and was almost a member of the Who. He's been playing rock n' soul music for over forty years, and he's never made a gospel album. He's cut a few straight soul numbers, but primarily he records R&B-influenced rock and roll.
In 2006, McLagan's wife died. He then wrote and recorded an album whose tunes are paeans to her memory, the most moving of which is "When the Crying Is Over." It's not quite gospel, but it's close. McLagan doesn't praise God/Jesus/Holy Spirit, but he does promise Heaven, if not for himself, then at least for his wife. His wishes are those of all of us who've walked the luminary lap, metaphorically or lyrically: he wants to see his wife again. He wants his grief to end, he wants to stop weeping, but more importantly, he wants to be together with his beloved.
Until he gets there, though, he'll have to satisified with the promise--one that he gives himself--of a reunion, and the Bump Band and the gospel background singers give him the blessed assurance he needs. The tempo's slow, but it rolls and sways, enabling McLagan to continue to endure, rocking him gently, and then McLagan himselfs plays the solo on his Hammond B3, and we feel not only the depth of his grief, not only his longing for reunion, but also his hope for a better world where he'll see his wife and hold her hand, forever and ever, and they can walk the luminary lap together, forever and ever. Amen.
NOTES
*There are many reasons for everyone's apparent happiness, but this post is already running long, so I'm going to keep it down to one for now.
**All apologies to Mr. Burroughs.
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