The term “one-liner” evokes comedians and jokes. Lately the one-liners that stick with me are from songs. Here are two that keep bouncing around in my head long after the music has stopped, courtesy of the Avett Brothers’ newest CD: There’s a darkness upon me flooded in light, and I am a breathing time machine. The lyrics look and read naked without the music but resonate nevertheless.
I make no secret of my adoration for The Avett Brothers, a band I fell for even harder after seeing them live last summer. For that concert at the Oregon Zoo, I stood in a monsoon-like rain, oblivious to the drenching.
Now I’ve seen them again, this time indoors last Friday night at the Crystal Ballroom. I leaned against the stage with the most die-hard music fans I’ve ever met: people who had flown from South Dakota, a couple who had driven eighteen hours from Colorado, and a woman from Washington, D.C. who was taking in her eleventh show on the band’s present tour. Another guy was seeing his sixth performance in nine days. All planned to take in the Saturday night show too.
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I won’t chide myself anymore for my swearing, which in my fifties has become more profane and repetitive when I’m alone and less frequent when around others.
That’s because an article in a scientific journal describes profanity as ubiquitous and a “natural part of speech development.” Guess I’m off the hook.
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I stand in the rain. The Avett Brothers are about to take the stage in Portland at the Oregon Zoo amphitheater. So miserable is the weather this night that wife and little son fled for home after the opening act.
Everyone is soaked and cold. While I wait, tunes from “Emotionalism” play in my head. Soon we’re jumping, crowded at the edge of the stage, invigorated by the Avetts’ energy that will keep me awake long after I’m home.
What’s the appeal? Not just their harmonizing twang tinged with rock and frenetic punk outbursts. Or their whiskey North Carolina drawls and plaintive lyrics. These boys are just flat out wired and unafraid to bare what’s roiling inside them.
I’m afraid to look at the rest of their tour schedule. I might bust out the Visa card and follow them, old-guy groupie who knows the lyrics and gets funny looks from the young hipsters when he sings along. Can’t help myself.
I’m at the gym today, listening to the Avett Brothers‘ CD Emotionalism as I pant and sweat. CNN is on the TV several feet away. I vow not to read the closed-caption transcription of John McCain’s speech and look away. But my eyes betray me.
McCain excoriates Barack Obama for not supporting the surge and brands him as an opponent of “victory.”
First thought: Karl Rove is playing a larger advisory role in the McCain campaign than reported.
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