Showing posts with label Clarence Clemons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clarence Clemons. Show all posts

Saturday, June 25, 2011

3 Chords & the Truth: Beyond the badlands


Badlands, we all live it every day.

The broken hearts have stood as the price we had to pay.

All we wanted was to keep pushin' till it was understood, and these badlands started treating us good.

Sometimes, it worked out. Other times, not. But always, The Boss and The Big Man were there to cheer us on.

To let the restless youth of what seems like a lifetime ago know they weren't alone. That they weren't freaks to want something better than the badlands.

THE MUSIC of my life was the music of my discontent . . . and of my hopes and dreams. It was the music that kept me sane when I wanted to spit in the face of those badlands.

The Big Man is gone; Scooter survives him. And many of our dreams linger on life support.

The badlands refuse to treat us good.

But this edition of 3 Chords & the Truth is all about holding on to hope. It's about spitting in the face of these badlands. It's about looking for how God is with us, not for declaring that He ain't.

This episode of the Big Show is devoted to finding joy amid our grief. It's about keeping the dream alive despite the lure of low expectations and lower estate. These are favorite haunts of the badlands.

In honor of Clarence Clemons, the Big Man, I spit in the face of these badlands. We'll have some fine spitting music on the Big Show this week, I guarantee.
Poor man wanna be rich,
rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied
till he rules everything
I wanna go out tonight,
I wanna find out what I got
Well I believe in the love that you gave me

I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the faith that could save me
I believe in the hope
and I pray that some day
It may raise me above these

Badlands, you gotta live it everyday
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you've gotta pay
We'll keep pushin' till it's understood
and these badlands start treating us good
IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Our loss is Gabriel's competition


When this week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth got put in the proverbial can Friday night, the last thing we had heard about Clarence Clemons was he was -- thus far -- making a remarkable recovery from his serious stroke last week.

That didn't work out.

Clemons, the Big Man, the irreplaceable sax man of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, died Saturday at 69. With him, one would think, went the E Street Band. With him, too, went a piece of an American generation's heart.

You can't replace the Big Man.

Bruce can't replace the Big Man any more than a widowed spouse can "replace" the one who, suddenly, no longer shares a home . . . shares a life. You strike out on a new path, with new dreams and a heart that always will be missing a piece.



FOR A GENERATION of us, restless Americans of a certain age now, Clarence Clemons' tenor saxophone -- sometimes joy-filled, sometimes mournful, always soulful -- filled our hearts as Springsteen's words filled our minds and gave voice, a soaring, wondrous musical voice, to our joys, our hopes, our struggles and our fears.

Decades down the highway, they still do. Sometimes more than we could have imagined in 1978.
Or 1980. Or 1984.

Only now those hopes, dreams, struggles and fears are quieter now. A little less joyful. A little less expressively mournful.

They now will be told with a lot less soul.


BUT WE REMEMBER a time when we were young, and when our proxies roared and wailed like a mighty beast. Before our advocates grew old, as did we, and the voice began to falter and fade.

In our memories, though, we still roar, and our heroes are still as young as our spirit, lurking as it is behind graying hair and expanding waistlines.

Hand me that old LP, will you. I damn time as I drink of the fountain of youth.