I’m getting old. I know that. I’m getting weird “old guy” physical ailments. Odd things growing on my skin. Odd things growing UNDER my skin. Don’t ask me if I need to go to the Men’s Room. I ALWAYS need to go to the Men’s Room.
Recently I came down with some strange disease called Dupuytren’s Contracture. The symptoms are your fingers, in extreme cases, curl into your palm and you can’t even put on a glove.
Now I know all of YOU know how much I love a nice glove. Lamb’s skin, leather. A nice glove is the way to my heart. But screw the gloves. I was starting to be unable to play my guitar the way I wanted. With my hands.
So I got surgery. They went under my skin with a little sharp thingy (I’ll try not t get too technical) and cut the cord that was contracting my finger and…voila!! I’m playing like I was seventeen!
Unfortunately, I didn’t learn guitar till I was nineteen.
See what I did there? I kid. No, seriously, I am back playing normal again. A bloody miracle.
One of the things that this experience revealed to me was… I’m not ready to quit. Do I wish it was still a strapping 25 year old strolling on stage? Sure. Thank God for stage lighting. Do I wish sometimes that that my voice was as high as Vince Gills… like it used to be? Vince was one of my first writing appointments when I started coming to Nashville. When we got to the chorus of the song we were writing, the hotel manager knocked on our door to complain that the dogs in the neighborhood were dropping unconscious.
I’m not that guy anymore. Now I have people coming up to me after a show and saying my voice reminds them of Kenny Rogers. I am fine with that. Now the first thing I request when I do a show is NOT cocaine and an Asian hooker… it is a stool on stage. Preferably with a back.
When I get together with other writers and singers of my generation the topic invariably comes around to “How long do we keep doing this?”
Mick Jagger said “If I’m still singing Satisfaction when I’m 30…shoot me.” It might have been Pete Townsend and “My Generation.” We all ask the question…”Do they want to see someone my age singing on stage or do they want to hear what someone my age has to say in a song?”
My friends who are asking these questions are great. They are singing great. Playing great. Writing great. Is there some imaginary line in our heads that shows the cutoff where Old Great is not as good as Young Great?
I have always believed that the audience will tell me when it’s time to go. I wrote a song years ago about our profession. I compared writing songs and performing to being a tightrope walker. (Not a terribly original idea… I think every writer has one)
It’s called “My Life Is On The Wire” and the last verse goes like this:
“Someday I will lose my sense of balance
The crowds will turn and cheer for someone new
and the voices that once told me I was golden
Will tell me when I’m through
One day there’ll be nothing left for burning
so what will I do then with all this fire?
My life is on the wire”
(That is followed by a whole bunch of “doo doo doos” but you get the idea.)
I still have something to say. There are older artists out there who can barely sing anymore but they are out there because they feel like the audience still wants to have the experience of seeing them. Maybe they have to talk the songs. But they tell stories of an older age when they were Golden and people lap it up and let the memories get ripped out of them like some weird cord coming out of the palm of my hand. Try getting THAT image out of your head.
I hope my friend keeps going. The world will miss his art. They will miss being brought back to when and where they were when they first heard his songs.
I’m playing a show tomorrow night. I will have my stool with a back. I will have my diet coke so the caffeine will help me stay up past 10 PM. I will have comfortable shoes. But my hand will be fine. My voice will be lower but will hopefully still do what I ask it to do. Hopefully no one will ask me to sing The Gambler.
I’ll let the audience decide if I’m overstaying my welcome.