Yeah, I think I can make it

Took these pictures yesterday on the bridge just below Gruene. Not sure what this guy was thinking, but heard on the news that he was rescued and then immediately arrested. You can't see it in the picture but his car was getting tore up from all the debris in the water. The dam is going to be letting off this much water all week so he's not going to have much left if they don't figure out a way to get it out of there.

Overflowing

"He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends his rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." - Matthew 5:45

The grace of God is everywhere and it has overtaken and consumed me. In the midst of both the ordinary and unusual pains of life, there is this joy that cannot be squelched. It is a joy that has become physical in that I feel this lightness in my chest as if my heart had wings and it is just floating around in my body, my ribs being the only thing preventing it from flying on out of here. And yet occasionally in moments of ecstasy it does escape, floating about the room and I'm forced in my mind's eye to run after it, leaping off the sofa to catch it before it becomes entangled in the ceiling fan. It is the strangest feeling, and one that has been growing in intensity over the last five years. I guess you could say that I am falling in love. God has grabbed a hold of me and I can't look away.

Life doesn't make any sense to me. I honestly can't figure it out. Part game whose rules I don't know, part random tragedy, part minor heartbreak, and all struggle from the first to the last. My perception, right or wrong, is that there are some people who have an innate knowledge of how "the game is played", some internal indicator that let's them know how to act or react in any given situation. Whether or not that is true, what is true is that I am not one of those people. I am at a complete loss as to how to move through this life with grace and effectiveness. The image that comes to mind when I think of my life and thus my relationship with God is of a rat in a flood swollen and raging river clinging to a log, scrambling, scrambling, claws extended trying deperately to keep from being ripped off and swept away.

At some point in the last five years, I finally started to get a grip on the log. The river, choked with debris and rapids is only getting worse, the bank further away, but amidst the terror, I have started to enjoy the journey. Perched precariously atop my log I have seen glimpses of beauty, perceived only from this vantage point that sustain me and give me strength for the ride.

The grace of God is the most beautiful thing in the universe and because of its beauty, it has the power to sustain and uphold. The most beautiful and powerful display of God's grace was Jesus birth, life, death and resurection. The beauty of Jesus, in principle and in reality is so powerful that it overflows and fills all of life. As I cling desperately to Christ amid the torrents of life, inwardly my soul is flooded with beauty until I find that the rat has begun to do an Irish jig atop his log, laughing and crying all at once as the waters rage.

I have never experienced a major tragedy in my life and so I'm not yet qualified to speak on that subject but I have found that throughout the minor aches and pains of life that Christ's love and grace has given me the power to move forward. His love has saved my soul, yes, but in the meantime his beauty is redeeming my life.

A red flower in the desert west of Phoenix just last week, a drop of water slowly running down the shower wall earlier this year, the rising sun exposing the flaws in a brick wall by casting a thousand tiny shadows across it's rusty red face shortly after 9/11, my daughters' two arms wrapped tight around my neck in a fierce growling hug (she doesn't hug so much as attack), the color green in a hundred hues as seen through my back door, a breeze weighted with the smell of cedar, a sip of wine, the ripple of muscle in a longhorn's side as he tries to shoo the flies away, and the trembling sound made by a guitar in that Eli Young song that took me took me far, far away. All of these and so many more are examples of the love and grace of God that overflows and spills everywhere; signposts pointing to his beauty, foretastes of the kingdom, hints of the not yet, sustenance and power for the now.

To look at me outwardly, you would not know this great symphony playing in my chest, nor would I probably suspect of you. I guess that is one of our great challenges, isn't it? How do we transfer inward realities into external momentum? The cry for help goes out again...Jeeesuuss!

"There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly. In writing those lectures and the book they later turned into, it came to seem to me that if I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." - Frederick Buechner

Thanks, Lady Bird

The bluebonnets are back and we are loving it down here in Texas. Carpets of bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrushes and various other native wildflowers dotting the landscape along our highways and county roads make driving just about anywhere in Texas a joy this time of year. For that we can thank our former first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, a woman whose tireless efforts to promote natural beauty and conservation led to the Highway Beautification Act of 1965.

While looking at Mrs. Johnsons' website wildflower.org I ran across the following quote that I'll finish this post with - "Mrs. Johnson's concern for the environment was matched by her deep appreciation for wild America's native beauty. Her belief that beauty can bolster the spirit of a society and her determination to make the United States a more beautiful place became Lady Bird's true legacy. "Ugliness is so grim," Lady Bird Johnson once said. "A little beauty can help create harmony which will lessen tensions."

Photos taken along Interste 10 between Houston and San Antonio.

PATTY GRIFFIN!

That's Right

Uno, Dos, TRES!

From Iraq

I am constantly amazed at how different our war experience is from that of the WWII generation. We have a major war going on right now but aside from the daily rants of self serving politicians and talking heads and the odd bumper sticker you'd never know it. In the place of rations and sacrifice, we have a booming economy and an excess of everything. Instead of individuals laying down personal comfort for the common good, we have the usual every man for himself in the race for more. It is the War That is Easy to Ignore. And yet as we go about the daily routines of our life, 300,000+ of our fellow citizens are in harm's way serving the rest us. One of them is my buddy Scott (see Dec 25th post).

Scott's grandmother died last week, a hard loss to endure at any time, but especially hard when you are halfway around the world and separated from the rest of your family. However, Scott is a humble, selfless man prone to action rather than complaining. One of the tough who get going during the hard times. He would never complain or feel sorry for himself but I know he would appreciate our prayers during this difficult time. If you are reading this would you please pray both for his encouragement during this time and for his safety while traveling around Iraq. And while you're at it throw in an extra one for his wife Gina and their two young daughters as well. Thanks.

Scott sent me a song that he wrote about his grandmother after she died and I would like to post it here to both honor him and his grandmother.

When I Close My Eyes
for Grandma Carow

Shriveled hands hang down from arms that once were strong
Thin white hair is now where brown hair once belonged
My fragile legs lack the strength to stand
But I know I'll walk again when I'm in the promised land

And when I close my eyes I'll see my Father
My eyes will see once again
I will run into the arms of Jesus
When I close these earthly eyes

Do not cry for me for I know to die is gain
I've lived this life for so long and now there's only pain
I must go to the healing arms of Jesus
When I close these earthly eyes

And when I close my eyes I'll see my Father
My eyes will see once again
I will run into the arms of Jesus
When I close these earthly eyes

 Where I go
 I know
 There's a mansion waiting for me
 When I look up
 I'll see
 Brilliant colors that I've never seen
 I'll join a choir of angels
 And our songs will fill the skies
 When I close these earthly eyes

And when I close these eyes I'll see my Father
My eyes will see clearly once again
I will run down a street made of gold with my Jesus
When I close these earthly eyes


sdc

Catching Up: Pictures from the last 3 months

Jen and the kids on Canyon Lake Dam in November (a family photo if you count my reflection in Jen's glasses)

Snow in the mountains above El Paso last month

Kinda makes you wish you knew how to ride a horse, don't it?

Wonderfully lonely in Rocky Mountain National Park (early December)

A new take on a familiar scene last month in Cloudcroft, New Mexico (see October Archives)

Duststorm near Odessa, Texas yesterday (this picture reminds me of the planet Luke Skywalker lived on in the Original Star Wars)

Church

From Hans Kung's book, On Being a Christian, as found in Brennan Manning's Book, A Glimpse of Jesus:
"The church of Jesus Christ is a home not only for the morally upright but for those who for a variety of reasons have not been able to honor denominational teaching. The Church is a healing community proclaiming the Father's indiscriminate love and unconditional grace, offering pardon, reconciliation and salvation to the down-trodden and leaving the judgment to God.
A Church that will not accept the fact that it consists of sinful men and exists for sinful men becomes hard-hearted, self-righteous, inhuman. It deserves neither God's mercy nor men's trust. But if a Church with a history of fidelity and infidelity, of knowledge and error, takes seriously the fact that it is only in God's Kingdom that the wheat is separated from the tares, good fish from bad, sheep from goats, a holiness will be acknowledged in it by grace which it cannot create for itself. Such a Church is then aware that it has no need to present a spectacle of higher morality to society, as if everything in it were ordered to the best. It is aware that its faith is weak, its knowledge dim, its profession of faith haltering, that there is not a single sin or failing which it has not in one way or another been guilty of. And though it is true that the Church must always dissociate itself from sin, it can never have any excuse for keeping any sinners at a distance. It the Church self-righteously remains aloof from failures, irreligious and immoral people, it cannot enter justified into God's kingdom. But if it is constantly aware of its guilt and sin, it can live in joyous awareness of forgiveness. The promise has been given to it that anyone who humbles himself will be exalted."

I read this passage nearly two weeks ago and the power of it is still resonating like a church bell within my chest. The vibration inspiring and unsettling at the same time. I view it as a part of the answer, a piece of the puzzle. If you were to hold this in one hand and a call to holiness and repentance in the other, I feel you would be moving in the right direction.

The painting above is Scene at the Entrance of a Cathedral by Karl Brullhoff. For more reading on the church see the February 4th post on my friend John's blog.

A Poem, Author Unknown

The next time you are in your local bookstore browsing your way through a rainy day I would like to recommend a book to you: How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill. It is a wonderfully rich glimpse at among other things; the Fall of the Roman Empire, Saint Patrick, and the Irish monks who painstakingly copied ancient manuscripts that were elsewhere being destroyed by barbarians. I love the book because it is written, at times, just slightly over your head but never so far as to be out of reach and you are constantly rewarded for slogging through some of the tougher sections with these incredibly alive and downright edible portions of text that will keep you mentally munching for days afterwards. It is one of those books that not only makes you feel smarter than you are but one that actually sticks with you and well..., makes you smarter. Two sections I'll recommend for quick browsing in the store before you inevitably buy it, St. Patrick's prayer on pages 116-119 (hardcover) and pages 152 - 164 (hardcover) or just 159 - 164 if you are in a hurry. The latter section deals with the monkish scribes who actually sat down and copied word for word ancient manuscripts. It has quite a few excerpts from the notes that they would make in the margins as they either interacted with the text or fought off boredom. Hands down one of the most giddy and thrilling pieces of writing (besides Yancey and Manning) I have ever laid my eyes on. Cahill sets the scene so well, you can feel the cold, damp air through which green and rocky hills appear and recede in the fog as young bookish men attempt to keep warm while hunched over musty smelling texts. These men come to life through their various postscripts and suddenly you realize, we are not all that different, us and them. I'll leave you with an excerpt from page 162 that goes nicely with The Moussacre of 07 on my cousins' blog.

"Perhaps the clearest picture we possess of what it was like to be a scribal scholar is contained in a four stanza Irish poem slipped into a ninth-century manuscript, which otherwise contains such learned material as a Latin commentary on Virgil and a list of Greek paradigms:

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight
Hunting words I sit all night.

'Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye,
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban my cat and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his."

Not exactly groundbreaking poetry I realize, but when you consider the context, it becomes a classic. Imagine for a minute that there are no printing presses and you make a living by hand copying word for word such classics as The Catcher in the Rye or Crime and Punishment. Tedious, tedious work, the only thing keeping you from going insane with boredom is your love for the written word. As you copy you entertain yourself by making up little poems in your head that help you pass the time. And then in one heady and mischevious moment you decide to write your poem in the margin or at the bottom of the page, a bold act that declares "I am here! I matter!" This poem is not just about the words, because of its context, it is one of the most essentially human poems I've read, containing the essence of what it is to live down here. "You are not forgotten anonymous Irish scribe, 1200 years later your poem still rings true. For chutzpah alone you are a legend in my mind, may we meet in heaven one day where you can introduce me to Virgil and I will introduce you to Helprin."

How the Irish Saved Civilization was the first of what is now five and will eventually be seven books in the Hinges of History series by Thomas Cahill. I have also read The Gift of the Jews and would recommend it as well. His latest is called Mysteries of the Middle Ages, a book so beautiful it caused drool to run down my chin as I browsed through it mouth agape at the bookstore last month.

Patty Griffin @ Gruene Hall

Last night, Patty Griffin opened a brief tour in support of her new album children running through at the beautiful and ancient Gruene Hall. It was a rare cold and rainy night here in South Texas that amplified the warmth and beauty of Patty's voice. The roughly three to four hundred people crammed into the hall soaked up every note, screaming for two encores. Unfortunately, I was not among them. Despite the fact that Gruene Hall is only two miles from my house I was unable to score tickets to the concert. But that didn't stop me from listening to the entire show, standing on the lawn outside the venue, in what turned out to be one of the neatest concerts I've been to.

Built on a bluff overlooking the Guadalupe River sometime in the 1880's, Gruene Hall looks as if every piece of wood in the place is original to the structure. On warm nights large wooden shutters are opened and standing out on the lawn you can see in through the chicken wire that covers the open windows and watch the show going on inside. When it's cold and rainy like last night they close the shutters but the building is so rustic and porous that in addition to hearing the music at concert decibels, occasionaly through large gaps you can see parts of the stage. In a rare stroke of bad luck, a speaker blocked my view last night so that all I could see on the times I tried were the bass player and Patty's mic stand. But, I was not there for the view, I was there for the music and it was outstanding. Unless you have one of those quirky college stations in your town you will never hear Patty Griffin on the radio despite the fact that she is the greatest female singer on the planet right now. Slightly raspy, melancholic, lyrical, angelic - Jen describes her voice in the following way, "I can see her singing on a dirty street, and fitting in there, yet somehow rising above, transcending it." A brilliant songwriter, she has written songs covered by the Dixie Chicks, Emmylou Harris, Martina Mcbride and several others. And I can attest, her voice in person loses none of the power that comes through in her recordings.

I love the roar of the crowd when the first notes of an old favorite begin to play. Standing outside, a large grin slowly spreading replaced a scream when I heard favorites like Making Pies, Kite Song, Truth No. 2, and Top of the World. She sang a few from her new album including the brilliant, Heavenly Day and one I'd never heard before Re: Mary, that I looked for but couldn't find on iTunes when I got home. In the beginning I was joined by a couple slow dancing in the rain, but they left after a few songs and I was alone until the first encore when I was joined by a carpenter from San Antonio who was recently turned on to Patty Griffin by a friend, and a tennis instructor from South Africa (living in Texas) who had a couple of CD jackets he was hoping to get autographed. We had a great conversation about our mutual love for Patty's voice before somehow the conversation turned to Bob Dylan. All in all it was a great night, spent alone and then with fellow diehards listening to one of the special voices of our time in a truly historic setting. It will be a long time before I forget, if ever, standing outside under the water tower watching smoke curl up from the chimney of that old wooden dance hall into a night sky heavy with mist as an angelic voice sang out "strange how hard it rains now, rows and rows of big dark clouds, when I'm still alive underneath this shroud, rain." Alive, yes, very much so.

From the Archives - July 2003

Man's soul leaves body, photographed outside Boston church.

My favorite photo for so many reasons. First, just a great father son pic, second; a great representation of my inner man. So often internally I feel like Calvin, full of joy to the bursting point, but outwardly look just like I do in this photo; semi-catatonic. Third, the red bricks, white window frame, and green hue from the tree reflected in the window make this picture absolutely pop. Kudos to the hot wife for sneaking this one in from across the street.

Accepted

It would be impossible to overestimate the impact these meals have had upon the poor and the sinners. By accepting them as friends and equals Jesus had taken away their shame, humiliation and guilt. By showing them that they mattered to him as people he gave them a sense of dignity and released them from their old captivity. The physical contact which he must have had with them at table (John 13:25) and which he obviously never dreamed of disallowing (Luke 7:38-39) must have made them feel clean and acceptable. Moreover because Jesus was looked upon as a man of God and a prophet, they would have interpreted his gesture of friendship as God's approval of them. They were now acceptable to God. Their sinfulness, ignorance and uncleanness had been overlooked and were no longer being held against them.

Through table-fellowship Jesus ritually acted out his insight into the Father's indiscriminate love-a love that causes his sun to rise on bad people as well as good, and his rain to fall on the honest and the dishonest alike (Matt. 5:45). The inclusion of sinners in the community of salvation, achieved in table-fellowship, is the most dramatic expression of the message of the redeeming love of the merciful God. -Brennan Manning in A Glimpse of Jesus

Painting is Cornfield by Moonlight - Samuel Palmer

A Few of My Favorite Things: Words

Before I begin this installment of my favorite things I'll give you another Helprin quote. This one from the story Ellis Island, is from the perspective of a young man immigrating to the United States from Europe. Shortly before the ship arrives in New York he is imagining what life will be like in his new home. "And, I thought that I would finally get to see the American Talking Chicken, who, it was believed in my village (why not?), possessed the mildly altruistic trait of sitting down with you just before he was to be cooked, to determine the best recipe. I imagine that such a conversation would be both candid and touching."

An incomplete list, constantly in flux:

1) Foxes. The fox is probably just about my favorite animal, but that's not why it's on the list, or maybe it is, (with words it is sometimes hard to tell), it's on the list because it is the key word in two of my favorite album titles - Catch For Us The Foxes by mewithoutyou and Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case.
2) Lush. One of the hard workers, a word with three meanings. a.) Abundant, plentiful, thriving, productive. b.) Characterized by luxuriant vegetation. c.) Drunkard; alcoholic. I originally wrote this list in high school and as best as I can remember, this word is the only survivor from that original list. I remember the first time I heard someone referred to as a lush (alcoholic) and me, without knowing the meaning thinking, "I want to be a lush, I hope that someday someone describes me that way."
3) Abalone. Much like a woman's neck, this word brings to mind something elegant, slender, and strong. A feminine word. Again, may or may not be tied indirectly to the meaning, we'll never know. A great word, nonetheless.
4) Copse. If I ever hear this word used in a sentence, I'll probably be doing something fun, outdoors, standing in a field, looking off into the distance.
5) Erstwhile. Don't know what it means, don't even need to know right now, still really like it.
6) Oxen. Nice masculine word.
7) Chino. First saw this word in the J.Crew catalog as a teenager. Later on, I was doing some landscaping for a Wall Street hotshot in Jersey when I first heard it in a sentence. His wife was telling me the story about how their son's college party was raided by a SWAT team who had narrowly missed a large drug bust earlier in the night and were dejectedly riding back to the station when a neighbor called in to complain about noise from the party. So the cops busted up the party dressed in full on SWAT gear and swagger. Her quote was something like, "Can you imagine?! Just a couple of frat boys in chinos standing around drinking beer and the SWAT team swoops in!" I enjoyed the story and the word somehow came to represent the entire crazy image it conjured up in my mind. I have used it once in a sentence, felt good, I remember being surprised when it came out of my mouth (nearly animate) after sitting dormant for nearly a decade.
8) Savannah. Even if you did not know what this word meant, I think you would still like it for the sweet yet efficient way it just sort of rolls of your tongue.
9) Cudgel. Back in Kansas City, my old boss and I used to get the word of the day from dictionary.com or something like it. This was one of our words. It can be used as a noun or a verb and refers to a short, thick stick used as a weapon; club or a verb as in "I'll cudgel you!" Makes me think of cavemen and how they who (allegedly) used very few words, had a very fancy word to describe thier crude weapons. I also like the word because it reminds me of two guys without degrees, yet very much in love with learning, trying to better themselves and beat (cudgel) the system in the process.
10) Brogue. Much like copse, if I am ever in a position to hear this used in a sentence, I'll probably be in a pretty happy place.
11) Lavish. This one is definitely tied to the meaning, when used in the spiritual sense, God's attitude towards and treatment of us.
12) River. Probably on this list right now because of the Springsteen song. Whenever I see the word, I hear him singing it.
13) Verde. This word stands on its own strength and needs no comment from me.

Cal Bob Gets After It

Here is a picture of Calvin with his trophy, a log he cut into thirds with a hacksaw. I was so proud of him, especially for his perseverance to stick with it till the job was complete and his enthusiasm while working. The kid flat out loves to work.

Twilight in the Dallas Railyard

The second annual Wilson family Christmas CD should be hitting mailboxes this week. Here is the album cover which I am posting here rather than printing 50 times. Maybe by next year I will have advanced to cover art and jewel cases. I realize that our CD and Christmas letter are being delivered in January, that the album cover doesn't look like Dallas, and that you are probably confused by the eclectic mix of music streaming through your speakers, but I promise you I'm not trying to be difficult, it just seems that way. Two more quick notes before I explain the music; if you did not get CD and would like one after reading about it, just shoot me a note and I'll send you one pronto (with 120+ on the mailing list, I had to draw the line somewhere), and technically it's not The Dallas Railyard, but rather, a Dallas Railyard, but it's the only one we work at, so to our crew it is The Dallas Railyard.

Shuffling Down the Tracks

The Dallas Railyard is a large storage area for sand and gravel that arrives by railcar and is dumped in large piles before being distributed throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area for various construction and road projects. It sits on a former landfill in a large marshy area that is surrounded by a shooting range, golf course, and a small amusement park (Speedzone). Our company visits it three times a year to take inventory of the various stone, gravel, and sand piles that fill it to overflowing. From atop these 30 to 40 foot piles you can see the skyline of Dallas nine miles to the southeast, the roof of Texas stadium, downtown Irving, all the planes landing at Love Field (and some headed for DFW), Interstate 35, as well as the aforementioned golf course, shooting range, Speedzone, and marsh. And as if that were not enough life and motion, you can also watch wild dogs fighting and the occasional hobo shuffling down the tracks headed only God knows where. With planes roaring just overhead, the Interstate humming and trains clickity clacking down groaning tracks, the ground literally shakes with movement. Movement creates possibility, possibility creates hope, and hope sets the imagination ablaze and nowhere is this more true than in the railyard at twilight. Watching hoboes shuffle down the tracks you wonder, could I pull it off? Could I ride the rails, watching life through the open doors of an empty boxcar? What would I eat? As the planes roar overhead, you think of businessmen with plans and important things to do, lovers full of sadness at loved ones left behind or full of anticipation at their reunion now only minutes away. The pop pop pop of gunfire from a nearby range brings thoughts of men sighting in the rifles as they dream of that upcoming hunt for____ out in ______. As the wild dogs chase each other far below, you wonder if the situation called for it could I beat them off with this four foot survey rod?

There is no sweeter time to be there than at twilight, when the sun's own movement is exaggerated and seems to be both moving swifter than usual and suspended, caught up in it's own beauty, all at once. The lights on Reunion Tower come on and as the sun heads for daybreak in Japan, the sky in Dallas slowly transitions from blue to orange to a pale shade of pink and for a few fleeting moments made sweeter by their brevity, the whole world seems to stop (or at least the whole world inside of me stops) and I feel peace. Surrounded by millions of people, I am on an island of solitude shared with wild dogs and hoboes. I wish you could see it, but since you can't, this cd will have to do.

Twilight's Sonic Wine Cellar

I am a big believer in music fully coming alive in the proper context. For every time and every place there is a song and vice versa. When you find the right song for the right time, something happens, sometimes the clouds part and you get a small taste of that which is ineffable. Think of this cd, eclectic as it is, as twilight's sonic wine cellar, a storehouse of songs that go well with twilight and just may part the clouds. This disc, inspired by the Dallas Railyard, is as full of contrasts and surprises as the yard itself. From blues to pop to gospel and opera, to country and back to the blues again, this CD will take you on as many journeys of the imagination as its inspiration. If you were to compress and distill all of the emotions in this CD and bottle them up, the time to drink that tasty brew would be just after the sun slipped over the horizon at the Dallas Railyard. The 21 songs on this CD will take you in 21 different directions, but they all lead to one place and one time--Twilight in the Dallas Railyard. But, and this explains the album cover, it goes down pretty smooth just about anywhere, so long as the sun is slipping over the horizon.

1. Night Life - B.B. King "When that evenin sun goes down..." and it is ON!
2. Lovin in My Baby's Eyes - Shannon Mcnally
3. When the Stars Go Blue - Ryan Adams
4. Life For Rent - Dido I love the laid back, sleepy, great power under restraint vibe to Dido's voice. Great lyrics too.
5. Love Gonna Walk Out On Me - Toots & The Maytals
6. Beautiful Stars - Isaac Freeman Beautiful song.
7. Painter Song - Norah Jones The accordion is a twilight instrument
8. Romanza - Andrea Bocelli I guess people think of opera type singing as being very highbrow but I really feel like it is blue collar music. I get the mental picture of a slightly overweight, balding man in his early 50's who just got home from work at the factory listening to this song. He's standing in the kitchen in his t-shirt with his suspenders hanging around his waist drinking milk from a cardboard carton. It is spring and the window is open. He doesn't really like the music, but the voice, the voice!
9. Whom Have I But You? - David Ruis An honest love song of faith by one of my all-time favorites.
10. Happy - Bruce Springsteen
11. 5:15 - Chris Isaak
12. Donegan's Gone - Mark Knopfler
13. Constellations - Jack Johnson The lyrics.
14. The Wild Card Spot, you got one of the following here: Heartland - U2, or Hard Times - Ray Charles, or For All the Right Reasons - The Jayhawks, or This Heart of Mine - The Wailin Jennys, or Many Rivers to Cross - The Five Blind Boys of Alabama. Some people got a song by Neko Case, either Hold On, Hold, On or I Wish I Was the Moon Tonight. If you got one of the Neko Case songs, it will show up after song 16. I couldn't put Neko Case and Patty Griffin back to back. It would have been the musical equivalent of two women showing up to the same party wearing the same dress.
15. Rowing Song - Patty Griffin I have a road trip mix on my iPod that has quite a few Patty Griffin songs on it. Whenever one starts playing I am compelled by the angelic qualities of her voice to scream, "Patty Griffin I love you!" at the top of my lungs every single time.
16. Rambling of a Beggar - Shawn McDonald
17. Heart of Gold - Neil Young For the rest of my life I will associate this song with my friends and former coworkers in Kansas City who introduced me to Neil Young. Harmonica = twilight.
18. Girl From the North Country - Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan
19. Slow Dancing - U2, Mickey Raphael & Willie Nelson
20. Abilene - Waylon Jennings I love the way this song sounds like it is being sung over a loudspeaker at a lumber yard or something. Like shortly after it's over the next thing you would logically hear would be "Carlos, please pick up... Line 1."
21.It's Bad You Know - R.L Burnside When my father-in-law, Bob, and I finally work up the courage to hop a freight train and ride it west, this is the song that will be running through our heads.
"It's bad, you know"
"Yup, shouldn't be doin this."
"Nope, shouldn't be doin this."
"Think they'll get our note?"
"Dunno."
Clickity-clack, clickity clack.