The Retrographer
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The Retrographer, Issue 85 (1 0 0 2 0 2 1)

The Retrographer, Issue 85 (1 0 0 2 0 2 1)

December 30, 2021

The Retrographer 85 (1 0 0 2 0 2 1)

LISTEN TO THIS PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY OR YOUTUBE

Emma and I left the altar this May to the beautiful sound of our loved ones cheering, the breeze in the old trees of Shelter Island, New York, and our friend Andrew playing the Marx Brothers’ “Everyone Says ‘I Love You’” on the guitar.

In the ceremony, my sister Caroline sung “Here, There, and Everywhere”, and my new father-in-law read us the lyrics to “‘Til There Was You”. An hour later, we strode onto the dance floor, where we were met by friends again: our friend Ian sang us “Into The Mystic”, backed by Andrew, and our friends Winston and Pat. I was filled with humbling gratitude as my new wife and I stared up at the stage, hearing the sound of our old friends playing us into wedlock.

2021 was the second year of the pandemic that pushed us further away from our loved ones. But among those challenges, I saw people of all types and motivations finding dynamism, being together in creative ways. We discovered ways to touch the people we love, start dating again, write new music, or simply keep our imaginations alive.

Music, in all of its magic, is a tincture of the people and places you enjoyed it with, the feelings you felt when you made or heard it. This year, so many of us used music to travel back to where we would rather be, who we would rather be with, and how we would rather be feeling. In those moments when we could get together – moments that so often felt stolen and scarce – music was there to flush our lives with color, to bring those feelings rushing back.

We were supposed to be married in September, 2020, and considered pushing it back again from May, but fortune swung our way and held the first fully-vaccinated event either of us had yet attended. It added a global layer to the fortune, gratitude, and deliverance I felt to link myself to the person I love.

Music had to be a part of our wedding, because it provides a mystical medium in which to understand phenomena: Family, love, time, as well as their absences. Its primary power is to describe its creator’s experiences, make them feel as true as they feel. Its magic is when it can arouse those same emotions, and indeed new ones, to others across space and time. It harmonizes feelings, resonates across spirits. That’s why weddings have processional songs, accompanists, and first dances: to bind congregants together in the ether of the moment.

It has a mysterious secondary power, too. Music connects the past to the future, blurs beginnings with ends and ends with beginnings. It makes people feel held when they’re alone, and reminds us to be grateful for our bounty by reminding us of what we’ve lost. I think this is what Van Morrison meant when he sang, “I wanna rock your gypsy soul, just like way back in the days of old – Then magnificently we will float into the mystic.” It felt right to have our friends sing this song to us as we took our past with us into the future.

Here’s another example: Last year I put out an album called Sunday. It was made up of eight songs I wrote to express my grief following my father’s death. But in the wake of this release, something odd started happening. I started hearing from fathers.

Here’s what one dad named David wrote me after hearing it:

“Thank you kindly for sending your amazing record safely and the sweet note. This copy now has a great home in Los Angeles and i'll take good care of 'er. I really adore this record man...it's brilliant. My baby boy (Waylon) really digs it too...i'll try to get a pic sometime but he'll stick out his arm and bounce it up and down when i play your record....The only other time he does this is when i play Biggie or Lee Morgan! Keep up the great work.”

So I wrote back:

“Thank you so much for writing me man! I am so happy you dig the record and I am honored you are sharing it with your adorable son. I really appreciate it.

You are the third person - after my friends Arnav and Edward - to write me and tell me you’re playing my record for your new child. That is such a beautiful thing to me, in no small part because I made this record to counterbalance the feelings of darkness I felt when I lost my own father. I can’t imagine a better, more poetic coda to this experience than to receive back pictures of young families, new lives starting, the story continuing.”

Now we know what it’s like to be together and to be apart. The times are trying, but there’s more to our lives than we thought there was. Our connectedness isn’t proximal or temporal. It’s spiritual. It’s musical.