Some things end.
I lost my big brother back in September 2023, which was harder than I expected. We hadn’t been particularly close, but … even so … We shared some shit. And we became, as the years went on, better friends. I honestly liked the guy, pain in the ass though he was. I was just about the only person in the world he was really real with, especially after his wife passed away. He was 11 years my senior, so it took a long time for me to grow up to the point where he and I could actually get each other, but toward the end, we made it. We had a few good years after many of estrangement.
So I lost a brother, but I gained a 1969 Gibson J50 acoustic. Which not at all coincidentally was the very guitar I learned to play on. He bought it new from Boddicker’s Music in Czech Village in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1969. I fell instantly in love with it.
So years and years later, she’s back with me, at a rather terrible price. But some things end. We come with expiration dates. It’s part of the deal. She’s got some songs in her, boy does she ever. And it feels good to have her home.
Other things end, too. Like … well, I have started posting these thoughts and songs on Substack, and I’m slowly building some traction, getting some paid subscribers, actually feeling like my words and music are getting out to a much bigger audience, and that is a happiness. My entire thing now is to write and release healing music into the wild, so it can help relieve some of the fear and stress and anguish that are endemic in this country right now. Help pull a few people out of fight-or-flight. And with Substack, my reach is way bigger. So … this is the last post I will be making here at the SoundWorks site. The good folks at Substack do all the stuff for me that I would ordinarily have to do myself to get things posted and promo’d, so in addition to putting me in front of a lot more ears, they’re saving me a crap-ton of time.
So farewell from here, but please do migrate on over with me. A free subscription gets you the songs and the stories. A few bucks a month will get you quite a bit more. Plus, I’m posting twice a week over there instead of once. Much more bang for your buck.
Dave’s Guitar
Sometimes it’s hard to tell right from left
Even harder to tell wrong from correct
Better when the heart says, this feels like yes
or no, only way to go
Callin’ it a day, gonna go away, callin’ it a day
There’s a too-sharp boundary between black and white
Every shade between takes us from dawn to twilight
Good and bad aren’t equal to day and night
at all, cuz that ain’t right
Bridge
You made a choice, was it agony or eyeblink?
I’ll never know, but I know what I think
I wish I could have held your hand
As you slipped away to an easier land
Now I sit with my fingers in the grooves
you spent 54 years wearing smooth
My thumb sits right where yours rested
for so long, time for another song