The older I get, the harder it is to surprise me. The windswept waves of CNN deliver man's inhumanity towards man everyday in nice, discreet 30-second bundles. Hearing news of the exploits of genocidal maniacs has become old hat. Still, there are things that surprise me and Jay Farrar's music is one of them.
During my last stint of dogsitting, I threw in his Terroir Blues and became entranced with "Out on the Road". Sparse acoustic guitar and flute create a fragile hand that cradles his ragged voice intoning loneliness and weary despair. He sings "You're gonna to find pain" and the flute flutters past your ears like a butterfly as it offers just a hint of a palliative.
It's something he does so incredibly well. Several of his songs are studies in melancholy but they all have hints of hope. "Tear-Stained Eye" is one of my favorite songs of all time. There's just something about how he sings "Sainte Genevieve can hold back the water/But saints don't bother with a tear stained eye" that sends a shiver down my spine. I get a certain sense of knowing exactly what he means, of knowing exactly how he feels without really knowing him at all. A town may be able to keep itself from being flooded by the Mississippi, but lonely people's hearts are always flooded by the River of Constant Change. Still, he offers hope:
If learning is living, and the truth is a state of mind
You'll find it's better at the end of the line
And that's what I keep wondering. When is the end of this line gonna come? When will it get better?
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