"Words are only words but we turn them into gifts... then we seem confused as their meaning slowly shifts"

A title-less bunch of words

It lacks the discipline or meter to be called a poem. So I'll call it a song. But in reality it's just what the title of this piece says.

I'm dismantling the memories

That I don't want to keep

The ones that haunt me still

Awake or in my sleep

I'm trying to make a man

One that you might love

I'm drawing a new line

For me to rise above

I'm throwing out the questions

There are no answers for

In my heart I know that

Nothing is for sure

I've wandered to the edge

Gazed out at the view

If seeing is believing

Not much of it is true

I'm arguing with reason

I'm disputing what I'm told

I've taken all the heat

And I've come in from the cold

I'm asking for forgiveness

But I don't know what for

So I ask it of the rich

And I ask it of the poor

My voice is crying out

For an echo for a friend

I've hurt too many people

For a single heart to mend

I want to sleep tonight

And dream of being free

A different tomorrow

Lived by a different me

The Mona Lisa's naked

And the world has gone to hell

It seems quite at home there

As far as we can tell

There's no mourning for the past

That escapes the ridicule

Of the secret men of power

Or the scribbling old fool

©2009 Dave Tutin / openD LLC

This man can write...

If you happen to be in Minneapolis in a couple of weeks (or are close enough to make a special trip) you should make reservations to see my good friend Malachy Walsh's play Beyond The Owing:

A treasure lost

Bob Dylan - yes, that's him on the left - once said that the album he was most proud of was the one on which he played harmonica for Victoria Spivey. That's her next to Bob. (Dylan used a photo from these sessions on the back cover of his New Morning album in 1970. Maybe his way of saying that he was trying to get back to something that mattered after some time in the musical wilderness? The sessions themselves were held in 1962.)

But this piece is about the guy sitting in the photograph. He is Big Joe Williams. One of the blues greats, known for playing a 9-string guitar and being a little, well, cantankerous.

Many years ago I went to a concert at a place called the DeMontfort Hall (or something like that) in the city of Leicester, England - a short journey from Nottingham where I lived. It was called The Blues Tour or something similar and it featured a whole bunch of great US bluesmen, none of whom could carry a UK tour on their own at that point. John Lee Hooker was there, others I've forgotten and, to me, the star of the show, Big Joe.

He was so large that he shuffled on stage with the help of a walking stick that was shaped like an old style wood saw - it was an elongated triangle of wood with a handle cut in the top. I guess a simple stick wasn't enough to help this enormous figure of a man. He sat center stage and someone brought him his guitar and placed it in his lap. It was hard to believe that this mountain of a man, who could barely walk and struggled to lower himself to a sitting position could actually play the guitar that was handed to him. But he did! Like nobody I had ever heard. His style was unique, his voice beyond belief. Of all the players on this tour it was listening to Big Joe that I felt I'd finally heard The Blues. The musical form I'd read about, listen to modern version of, and never fully understood what all the fuss was about. Listening to Big Joe I got it. This man didn't sing the blues, he was the blues. He had lived what the songs were about. The early Rolling Stones might have introduced a lot of us to the blues which then led us to John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and others. But they were all, no matter how well they did it, playing the blues. Suddenly I saw this man who inhabited the blues.

I was never one for standing outside stage doors after gigs to get autographs (almost all the ones I own are in the form of signed books). But Big Joe affected me. I went to the back of the building and found the tour bus. Back then, and for these guys, security was nonexistent. Sitting there in the front two seats of the bus (he couldn't make it further down the aisle) was Big Joe. Handing him my program I asked him to sign it. He gave me a weird look and mumbled something I could not hear. I then realized he was asking me for a pen. Luckily I had one and I gave it to him. Holding it like a dagger in his fist this man whose fingers had deftly pulled sounds from those nine strings I didn't think a guitar could make, now struggled with the pen as if he'd never held one before. In letters as large as the man he jerkily scribbled JOE across a picture of himself. And handed it back. 

I treasured that program for years. Everywhere I moved it moved with me. Only recently did I realize I don't have it any more. I have no idea where or when it left my possession.

Big Joe left us in 1982. My memory of that meeting has never left me, and never will. I have no idea why I was thinking about this event from long ago - I just was.

Talking 'bout my generation...

WE

We lived in a fine time

you and I

Now we must watch as our

icons die

Victims of cocaine or

Demerol

Their visions traded for

folderol

We lived in a fine time

you and I

Urged to die young we all

now know why

©2009 Dave Tutun / openD LLC

Back in stock

Amazon.com just ordered more copies of or words to that effect. So please ignore any comments about them being out of stock. If you order the book, it will be shipped. And the new price is just $10.

As a reminder, it's a limited edition of 200 signed copies and more than half of them are gone. So please tell your friends who like poetry to grab a copy now. 

And if you already have a copy and feel like writing a review at amazon, please do. Just scroll down the page that is linked to above and you'll see a "create your review" button. My thanks to those who already did this - your kind words mean a lot.

Any Minute Now: a new song

As I said in a post a short time ago, when I'm working on a new album I have to draw a line in the sand. I have to commit to what songs are going to be included. But a writer cannot stop writing.

I've been asked by a few people if living here has changed my writing in any way. And I guess the answer has to be yes, it has. I don't fully understand the changes yet. Some are subtle. Some are obvious. The reference in this song to the mountains is one of the latter examples. But something tells me that this place also sends you into yourself to examine things you otherwise might not. I'm not sure - I won't really know until I've lived here for some time. But here's the first song written in its entirety in Santa Fe. 

ANY MINUTE NOW

It's raining in the mountains

I can see it from here

Any minute now the sun is going down

And when we wake

The sky will be clear

And we can take a ride into town

I live my father's anger

He passed it down to me

Any minute now my eyes will cloud

The blood comes rising up

For everyone to see

And the words become pointed and loud

I want to get the time back

I squandered in the past

Any minute now time will just run out

It goes without me saying

Time has always run too fast

We're gone before we know what it's about

I dream I'm in a room

And the room is full of women

Any minute now the real fun will start

All the one's I loved

From here to the beginning

It's no wonder I wear a damaged heart

It's raining in the mountains

I can see it from here

Any minute now the sun is going down

But when we wake

The sky will be clear

And we can take a ride into town

Lyrics and photo ©2009 Dave Tutin / openD LLC

In praise of collaborators

Someone once described a major London ad agency as being "so confused they're stabbing each other in the front". One of the things I hated about working in advertising was how selfish it made you with your own ideas. Anyone who has never worked in the industry probably assumes it to be a world of collaboration, where everyone combines their talents to make ideas better. But the truth is, in thirty-six years of being first a writer, then a creative director, I had this kind of relationship with only a handful of people. 

It's understandable to a degree. After all, getting that next, more senior, higher-paying job relied totally on getting credit for your ideas. And for the same reason there were always those willing to 'steal' that credit. 

Having said this, the world of music is not much different. Many people who were "in the room at the time" have ended up with a 50% share in a song - to which they contributed, maybe, one chord change, or one rhyme.

So why am I now writing in praise of collaborators? 

Well, I read a few days ago that Paul McCartney had said something to the effect of how he was "spoiled" by having John Lennon as his earliest collaborator. (Later in the life of The Beatles I believe the two wrote predominantly alone - but I do believe they collaborated on the early songs). Paul said that he never felt as comfortable with any of his later collaborators.

This made me realize that collaboration is actually a test of character. You have to trust your partner implicitly. 

I have recently embarked on two major collaborative efforts. Which means I must have found partners who fit this description. Both of them are writers I worked with before in the ad business, both of whom have since pursued artistic goals outside of it.

MALACHY WALSH.

For years I carried around in my head the idea for a movie. Well, I thought it was a movie. Turns out it is a TV series. I cannot go into detail about the idea because we are currently talking to guys in Hollywood about getting it made!

But here's how it came to life.

The other bad aspect of the advertising world is that it makes people feel they have to be great at everything and, of course, few people are. I have a talent for certain kinds of writing - others I'm not so good at. Which is why this idea never got written down. It was outside my comfort zone.

So, frustrated at wasting what I thought was a good idea, I shared it with my friend Malachy. And bingo, sparks flew.

You see Malachy had studied writing for the stage at Columbia University. He had all the talents I lacked. He understood how to craft a longer story line in four acts. Whenever I tried to write down this idea it turned into a short story! He understood how to craft characters through dialogue, rather than description. Better still, he brought these specific characters to life by truly sharing my enthusiasm for them and for the idea. He's not a bad film maker also.

It's now our idea, not mine. Any success it achieves will be ours, not mine. That, I have learned, is the true result of honest collaboration. And it feels good.

JEFF SHATTUCK

Jeff is another gifted writer I had the pleasure to work with many years ago in advertising. Due to a brain injury (best he explains it himself - cerebellumblues.squarespace.com) he has switched his focus back to songwriting. Much like me he had started out in the music world only to have advertising take over and pay the bills!

Jeff has been working hard on putting an album together. And it's nearly finished. Along the way he has been kind enough to share with me his lyrics as they were coming together and early mixes of his finished songs. He writes great stuff.

Somewhere in this process I happened to mention that I have a problem. A nice one, but a problem nonetheless. I am much more prolific with words than I am with music. The result is I have many finished lyrics that I would almost certainly never get around to putting to music. 

Much to my surprise (as his own are extremely strong) Jeff asked if I would send him a lyric or two so that he could write the music.

The first one turned out great and we have now collaborated on four songs. As I've said before, titles don't mean much on their own but they are:

Borderline Love

The Forgotten Place

Waitress Blues

Easier Said Than Done

Recognizing that the digital world has changed forever the definition of an album - Jeff recently suggested we finish these songs and release them. Which is what we intend to do.

A few days before this, Jeff had posted on his blog a photograph he'd taken. It's the one at the top of this piece. I loved it. And immediately suggested it would make a great cover for his album. It was then that he responded, "What about a cover for our EP?" He asked if I had any thoughts for a title and I came up with DEEP SALVAGE.

This title came to me because it captured the second great pleasure I have discovered in collaboration. A gifted collaborator can "salvage" ideas that otherwise might never see the light of day.

It's hard to be your own critic. It's natural to favor what you wrote most recently. And having this second outlet for my lyrics has been an immense surprise and an immense pleasure.

So, Jeff and Malachy, my heartfelt thanks for teaching me that even though I may have moved to the desert I am less alone than ever before.

Our visitor makes front page news

From The New Mexican, June 17, 2009.

We're not in Manhattan any more.

Of that we had beautiful proof today when a normally nocturnal young Bobcat came to drink from the fountain in the little garden outside our front door. What an incredible sight. And, we are told, an extremely rare one. Luckily my camera was close by.

A belated happy birthday to Bob (May 24th)

TOGETHER THROUGH LIFE*

(for Bob Dylan)

 

Thanks to him

the song was destroyed

re-imagined

restructured

rebuilt

 

I don’t think

he planned

to destroy his life

in the process

But hindsight shows it

to be

an inevitable side-effect

 

Now

he creates songs

more like they were

before he arrived

 

But he sings them

with a voice that

has been destroyed

 

Destroyed by every

imposition

Destroyed

by weight multiplied by time

 

So few seem to grasp

the favor he has been doing us

for a long time now

 

Recreating what he destroyed

is his apology

 

Thanks to him it’s all there

To be destroyed again

And again

 

 

 

©2009 Dave Tutin / openD LLC.    

* Together Through Life is the title of Dylan's most recent album released in 2009.