by Darden Smith | Oct 4, 2012 | And here's another thing..
Sometimes when I play my guitars, I go somewhere else. There’s a mystery inside of these boxes, wood with steel strung across it that defies a real true telling.
And it doesn’t happen all the time. Sometimes I pick up a guitar that sang to me the day before and there’s nothing there. It’s like someone isn’t home. And then a week later, the old friend returns. I wish someone could explain it to me, but then really I don’t want to know. I’d rather be surprised.
I have a 1952 Gibson LG, a little scruffy thing that looks like it was beat up in a bar fight outside of Phoenix and had to go to work in a car wash just to pay the bills. The first time I played it I immediately, and I do mean that, went somewhere else. Out of the guitar store, into the middle of a field, a still day, sun setting behind the trees, I’m on a bench, writing.
And I heard songs in that guitar. I want the songs. I buy guitars because they have songs in them that want to come out. Stories. I literally can feel the songs speaking. It sounds crazy, but it’s true.
On the road, I play my Collings. And when I’m in the back of a club, in a dressing room, with hours to kill before a show, the Collings and I pull the curtains on the world. No one can find us. We don’t need anyone’s help making it back to the show.
Wood, metal, held at tension, and out of that comes a medicine that cures more than I’ll ever know. I love a good guitar.
Photo by Bob Delevante
by Darden Smith | Sep 2, 2012 | And here's another thing..
This is my blog. Though I’m not fond of the word — it brings to mind some sort of B-grade science fiction character, or an ancient surgical maneuver — it seems to be what it is. So I’ll go with it. I thought about coming up with some fancy title, but everything sounded a bit over the top for something that maybe only a few people out there will even care about. Plus, if it’s a really good title, I’d rather write a song about it.
I’ll be spilling thoughts here, a few photos, maybe a song lyric or scrap of verse. In general, this will be where things will go that don’t make it into songs, which are still the No. 1 bag where I dump most of what comes rattling out of my brain. I have other places, blank books mostly, where these thoughts go. But those are filled mostly with words I wouldn’t share with my best friend, so the idea of putting them into the digital, never-disappearing world doesn’t seem like the best idea. So the blog will be a trail of what crosses my mind that lies somewhere between song and what’s hidden from all view.
I know, I know, everyone has a blog now. And does the world really need another one? No. Not really. It doesn’t. But so what? I’m going to do it anyway. I have too many stories to think about, there are so many funny and weird images and instances that cross my path, to let them slip away unnoticed. It just seems like a good idea to put them down somewhere.
That way at least I’ll have some sort of record of what was in my mind when I’m old and can’t even remember where I put my shoes.
