Born to Listen

I've seen Springsteen just twice. The first time was 1979 or so for what might have been the Darkness on the Edge of Town tour. The second time was about 15 years ago. It was Bruce's "stadium folk" tour, the one that celebrated his Pete Seeger Sessions record. I went with my wife's cousin, who is a Bruce super fan, someone who's hooked into the whole community, so we were able to get a place in the good, standing-only area up front. This concert didn't offer the full E Street Band extravaganza, but it was pretty cool to see Bruce bring his big energy to a set of the old songs, the traditional songs, the ones whose melodies and chord changes are deep in our DNA.

But that's not what this post is about. What this post is about is a conversation that took place afterwards while we were waiting for the parking lot to thin out a bit so we could do the same. So, while we were sitting there in the car, one of her fellow Bruce super fans came up to the window for a chat. And at one point he said, You know, I think I was born to experience Springsteen concerts. And I'm thinking to myself, Dude that is some crazy talk. Maybe you need to get some perspective. 

The funny thing is, though, sometime within the last year I found myself thinking the same thing as him. Not that I was born to experience Springsteen, but that I think I incarnated here this time around mostly to experience music, especially the concentrated beauty and grandeur of well-crafted and well-performed songs and the exploratory, communal beauty of jazz. Okay, I know what you are thinking. Why come here to experience music when basically that's all they have in Heaven, like all the time. Well, two things. First, we're talking about fucking harp music, a little bit of which goes a long ways. Second, the music there is actually being communicated telepathically, with instantaneous communication from consciousness to consciousness, with no impediments or interference.

However, our human impediments are where the real juice comes from. I mean, when we come here we agree to being separated from one another, which can be a source of pain and misunderstanding. But it also means that we get to experience things through vibrational fields; indeed, each of us is a unique vibrational configuration. This means that when we communicate, we feel the communication in our bodies. Vibrations become the vehicles for carrying emotion and beauty, as well as the mode for manifesting them. Songs and works of art are essentially refined and distilled manipulations of vibrational energy. They give us the full shot, the apotheosis of being human.

So, I figured a post like this should have a performance video. And I thought to myself, how about some Willie Nelson. Willie has the positive all enveloping vibes of a Bodhisattva, and, well, he can really deliver a song. I chose Angel Flying To Close to the Ground from a 1979 Austin City Limits "songwriters' circle" broadcast. I saw this in real time back then, and never forgot it. A quick Willie anecdote. An interviewer asked him what his favorite song was and he said Moonlight in Vermont. The interviewer asked why, and Willie said, I don't know, I just like it. Fair enough. In fact, forget everything I just said. What I'm trying to say is that music is just something I like, a lot.