Chit-Chat Check-In #127 Transcript
Hello, this is your Captain speaking, waking up after a day off, after playing three shows on the Outlaw tour with three of my all-time heroes—Lucinda Williams, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson.
I've only really thought of one word to express what I've been reflecting on, and that's "profound." And I don't have a whole lot of other words to go with it, to surround it with. It's profound to watch Willie Nelson at 92 years old singing to an audience of thousands of people, "I'm the last leaf on the tree," looking very much like he could blow away at any moment.
It's profound to watch Bob Dylan defiantly present his music as if he's inventing it again every night. I don't know what else to say except that I marvel at it every night. He's surreal. There's just nothing else to say.
And then Lucinda—we've been friends for a fair amount of years. Watching her, defiantly play whatever the hell she wants to play. And stand there and exhibit, probably, some of the continuing effects of having had a stroke. Night by night, standing on stage and recovering the best part of herself in front of everyone. She looks and sounds better every time I see her in the years since she had her stroke. And that's incredible.
Taken as a whole, all three of them ... it's the best of what I believe, personally, is the best about the idea of America. It just underlines how important the visible display of radically individuated self-expression—how important that is for people to see. And what it does to people. It fills them with wonder and joy, and provokes thought and gives them some moments free of care. All the things it's supposed to do. All three of them are carrying on and continuing to be part of a sort of an eternal song of America that grew out of a type of music invented by some of the least free members of our culture.
All of that to me is very intense at this moment in history. It's also kind of hopeful and transcendent compared to what we walk around in, what we swim around in, every day in terms of our public discourse and the politics of this country. They represent the people. Not all of them—I would never say that, for obvious reasons, politically. But also for obvious reasons not politically at all. What they represent is a pure form of individualism, and to me, that's kind of the liberty of the American promise. Facilitates that in a way that created this wonderful, uplifting export of music for close to ... depending on where you want to start dating it ... I think early jazz was a pretty good ambassador for the American idea. Going on 100 years of recorded music that's been able to travel farther than the people making it.
That's what I'm doing, still, today. At some point I'll have to start thinking about expressing myself tonight. But I feel pretty bolstered in the idea that it's a privilege that I get to do what I get to do. It's not unimportant, and I feel emboldened to be myself. And that's pretty much what those people have been doing for me since I was a little kid.
The other thing that is extremely apparent—one of main things that's apparent to an audience watching this tour right now, at least the lineup we were on, primarily with Bob Dylan and Willie at top of the bill every night—these guys are getting old. It's just something you think about every night. You think about their mortality, our mortality, my mortality ... it's been on my mind a lot.
Then I went for a hike one of the days of the shows, and the first song that came on was "Forever Young" by Bob Dylan. God, I wanted to sing it to them. I think that song is meant to be sung to a young person, or at least that's the implication. But holy shit, are all three of those people forever young, in my opinion. I'm grateful.
Just wanted to share all that. I'll see if I can work up a cover of "Forever Young" in the meantime. Carry on.