Slide up, hit the right note and the band comes in just as sure as if I was holding up the little stick, that magic wand they give symphony conductors. Watch me for the changes. And I can’t help but think, who the fuck put me in charge? What do I know about lonesome highways east of anywhere, let alone some state so foreign to me it might as well be Mars?
But it is magic, after all, isn’t it, when thirty years’ worth of stale smoke and freezing midnight load outs comes in, in unison right behind me, waiting to execute that progression and give me room to sing about what’s more or less fiction to me. It’s like war: you have to trust your brothers to keep you safe, out of the line of scrimmage, to give you some covering fire to get you through to a foxhole between verse and bridge where you can’t do any more damage to the words, where you can slide up and hit the right note and let that be your validation.
My fingers form chords like prayers; please forgive me father for I am a sinner doing wicked acts, but I just can’t seem to stop. This is my alleluia, can you understand that, this is my movement of faith. It’s God talking through us in a minor key, all of us together like we’re a bummed-out, small-time host, holding secret worship under cover of sticky tables and tobacco clouds. It’s a whiskey confessional: forgive me, let me do my penance right here. It’ll be stigmata fretboard and sacramental bourbon, and I’ll bow down to you, I’ll be the altar boy in your church. It’s magic, isn’t it, a sacred mystery, Father, Son and Holy Gibson.
Raise my voice, crack and waver, imperfect until I slide up, hit the right note, and it all comes in behind me. And if that’s not sacrifice, then forgive me one more time. Count it in: one, two, three, four.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment