The Hardest to Learn is the Least Complicated

Ignatius of Loyola - Founder of the Jesuits (1556)

Tonight a group of us attended the Lilith Fair. In case you're not familiar, it's a concert tour created by Sarah McLachlan featuring female performers at various levels of commercial success. The lineup changes a bit over the course of the tour, but this year's biggest performers (besides McLachlan) herself were the Indigo Girls. Performing together under that name since 1985, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers are both lesbians, but have never been romantically involved in spite of (or perhaps resulting in) their longtime musical partnership.

My own history with their music goes back nearly to the beginning, when they collaborated with Michael Stipe from INXS and Hothouse Flowers on songs like "Closer to Fine" and "Kid Fears" which still get the fans to their feet today.

But the song of theirs that resonates with me the most from those days is "Least Complicated" written by Saliers for the 1994 release Swamp Ophelia. It tells the story of a shy kid who develops a crush on someone from the "in-crowd" and impulsively makes these feelings known via a touching but inappropriate gesture, only to learn that the feelings are in all likelihood unrequited, thus further cementing the isolation.

I always liked this song, despite the lack of a happy ending, because I feel like all of us are -- at any stage of life -- that little kid at times. Not necessarily in a romantic setting, but just prone to occasionally misread a social situation or maybe just give someone a little more credit than they deserved. And we withdraw the slapped hand, maybe get a little cynical, but hopefully we don't give up. Despite the somewhat melancholy subject matter, the melody to this song is catchy and upbeat, and the oft-repeated chorus is one the crowd joins in with relish every time I hear the song performed live. I like to think that each one of those people singing is thinking something along the lines of "Yeah, I get that. I can be a goofball like that too sometimes." And maybe we go home promising to be a little easier on ourselves, and try to handle it with a little more grace when someone enthusiastically presents us with some awkward token of misplaced affection.

"Least Complicated"
Words & Music by Emily Saliers, from the Indigo Girls' 1994 Album Swamp Ophelia

I sit two stories above the street
It's awful quiet here since love fell asleep
There's life down below me though the kids are walking home from school

So long ago when we were taught
That for whatever kind of puzzle you got
You just stick the right formula in a solution for every fool

I remember the time when I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool

What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

So I just sit up in the house and resist
And not be seen until I cease to exist
A kind of conscientious objection a kind of dodging the draft

Boy and girl are holding hands in the street
And I don't want to but I'll think you just wait
It's more than just eye to eye learn things I could never apply

I remember the time I came so close with you
I let everything go it seemed the only truth
And I bought you that ring it seemed the thing to do

What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

Oh I'm just a mirror of a mirror of myself
All the things I do
And the next time I fall I'm going to have to recall
It isn't love it's only something new

I sit two stories above the street
It's awful quiet here since love fell asleep
There's life down below me though the kids are walking home from school

I remember the time I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool

What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

God's Been Good to Me

Mary, Martha & Lazarus of Bethany

I begin writing here from a very "good place". Anyone who knows me well is aware that last summer was, for lack of a better expression, a shit show, bookended by the diagnosis and subsequent death of my friend and bandmate Henry from Leukemia, and punctuated in the middle by eye surgery which left me unable to drive, lift weights or read for the better part of a month. Thanks to the generosity of some close friends I was able to get out here and there but for the most part it was an isolating, unhappy time.

Thus there was nowhere to go but up, and -- being a summer person by nature -- I vowed that this year I would make up for it. Unlike George Costanza, I have thus far not been disappointed. In fact, looking back at what's happened so far, I feel as if someone up there has been stacking my deck in my favor.

Case in point, I found out a few months ago that a band I have loved for years, Chamberlain, had signed on to tour with The Gaslight Anthem this summer. Since they live in Indiana, aren't on a major label and broke up in 1998, I had pretty much assumed I would never see them live. Yesterday, I did, and it couldn't have been better. We got great seats, the weather cooperated, and they started out with one of my two favorite songs of theirs, "Try for Thunder" that had helped keep my spirits up when all the aforementioned stuff was going down last year. Also, I found out while writing this that they released a single "Raise it High" which hopefully means they're planning on doing more work together.

None of this should eclipse the fact that they were opening for Gaslight, the main reason most of the audience was there. I have to say that the audience, which was pretty young, was extremely receptive to both Chamberlain and the opening-opener, Tim Barry. Hailing from Richmond, VA and also the once-and-future(?) frontman of a punk band Avail, Barry is unapologetically rough-hewn and commented that he rarely performs anywhere "as nice as this". At one point he got off the stage with his acoustic and climbed partway up the amphitheater where he performed a song unamplified. Just about everybody quieted down so he could be heard, interrupting him only by clapping along at the chorus. He sheepishly thanked everyone for indulging him, calling his stunt "selfish" when in fact the audience seemed to love it.

I won't go on about Gaslight Anthem, both because I'm sure there will be tons of reviews of their show and I don't know their music that well, but they were pretty energetic and connected well with the crowd, who knew every word of every song. If only their teachers could get them to study so hard! Now I want to go see them again at the Stone Pony next week, especially since (Gaslight lead singer) Brian Fallon is a huge Springsteen fan. The Boss appeared at the Pony last Friday night to play a few songs with buddy Alejandro Escovedo, on whose album he appears, so you never know.

Anyway, I'm going to bed feeling very blessed.

"Try for Thunder"
By Chamberlain (written by David Moore & Alex Rubenstein) from the CDs The Moon, My Saddle and Five Year Diary

I haven't smiled in a long time but I've learned how to look impressed,
learned to lose the dreams I had when I was at my best.
When I was a boy on the back lawn, faith, like a gun,
I'd find and be it loaded or not I'd keep it at my side.

This voice inside keeps saying: "congratulations on what you've done,
on all you are and all that you won't become."
But even when it's hard I guess I'm never where I don't belong
and I'll get there by knowning I'd get there all along.

This life to me it's like a try for thunder.
This sky that I'm under it's the best sky for me.

I've learned less from daylight than from night threatening to leave.
All along my voice goes after what my hands cannot reach.
I ran through the fog without you, through the low hard language of rain,
afraid that if I caught what I came for I'd never want it again.

This life to me it's like a try for thunder.
This sky that I'm under it says God's been good to me.

One night in the rain you set me straight.
You said I have everything I need, and for every slow day in the sun there's two storms in between.
Where I am is where you'll find me at the edge of many things,
hands outstretched, doing circles in the rain, grinning like a thief.

This life to me it's like a try for thunder
this sky that I'm under it says God's been good to me.