Devotion Blues

Sharing something a little different today.

I started writing the below song almost four years ago and finally worked up the nerve to record and mix it. I’ve always had a soft spot for interminable folk/Americana songs, like Gillian Welch’s “Dream a Highway” or, well, half of Bob Dylan’s catalogue. I wanted to make my own contribution to the genre. It felt so different from everything else I’ve put out (it’s much longer, for one thing) that, to be frank, I didn’t want to fuck it up, not even the demo.

It seems to me like a life worth living will inevitably involve sticking with something that’s hard and frequently embarrassing and sometimes not enjoyable. That’s what music has been like for the past couple of years, to be honest. It feels weirdly appropriate that a song about devotion’s manifold indignities would require me to navigate this weird detour of existence in order to put it out into the world.

Naomi has been persistent about listening to my own music with me and sort of gently reminding me that, ah yes, this used to be something I enjoyed doing. So I finally forced myself to pick up the guitar and start recording. Presto chango, my dread eventually transformed into something like relief that I was finally getting on with it. I think of it as an IOU to myself—I owe you one live band performance of this track when the fates allow.

The world might be going to war this week and plague is still making the rounds like a terminally extroverted new neighbor who wants to meet everyone on the block. Still, I hope the track will put you in touch with some power that’s positive and merciful and dare I say real.

Way out west of Gilead where the highway meets the hills
Met a young girl holding an old guitar like a gunman fit to kill
I asked her why she held her fingers hard against the frets
She said it was her ticket out of all she would forget
And as Daddy stepped outside to break the devotion in her hands
She kept on gunning for the promised land
And she said “Man

Ain’t gonna lay that vision down
And all you good old boys ain't going to miss the sound
When I reverberate the world around
Ain’t gonna lay that vision down”

I met a sole survivor in the shadow of a Sunday morn
Soaked in the secret history of all could not mourn
He was seeking prayers to still the breakers dragging him below
But the righteous left him driftin in that slow sea billows’ roll
They shut the doors on two and four while still he testified
In a voice as straight as rye

My my my

“Ain’t gonna lay that vision down
There ain’t no gravity where I am bound
I’ll see the tides divide before my baby’s gown
Ain’t gonna lay that vision down”

Life’s cheap, no sleep, 13 on her tail
Can’t pay, can’t stay, leave before he posts bail
Roadside, hitch ride, nearly died, play the fool I
Know a guy who knows a guy headin’ up to Tapachula
Duck, roll, run, crawl, hole up in a cantina
Lemme see your ID, spinnin’ like a ballerina
Wanna catch a flight to Tijuana you better get in line
Kitchen pays shitty but it’s pretty in the nighttime
All flashin’ by in the back of her mind
At the feet of two Laredo police
Beggin please

“Don’t make me lay that vision down
You know the devil ain’t about to quit me now
You got to let this pilgrim progress somehow
Don’t make me lay that vision down”

Dreamed I was a dreamer in the spring of ’68
I stepped into a chapel to find shelter from the rain
The King of Birmingham was asking the choir for a little faith
But as the pews were empty I said the hour was gettin’ late
And he said “Son I’m bound to holler
Till there’s blood upon my collar

Ain’t gonna lay that vision down
I will go marching in with my head unbowed
Till we have faces raised beneath a poor boy’s crown
Ain’t gonna lay it down

Well, you’re my soul’s reverberation, the whisky on my tongue
My final destination on that final desert run
I hear the ghost inside you callin’ to the ghost inside of me
Singing exaltation for the light we cannot see
Hold my skin and bones and they’ll behold you by and by
This is my gospel cry

Singin I ain’t gonna lay that vision down
Not even when they lay me in the ground
I’ll call your name when I come back around
Ain’t gonna lay it down