TomFlannery.com

I’ve started to play again. Haven’t reached for the pen and paper yet, but at least I’m strumming G, C, and D chords again….along with trying to get my voice into the same area code as the pitch that’s called for.  When I put the guitar aside, it’s my voice that inevitably suffers the most.

So what to do? Listen, that’s what. So I pull out my BoDean records and go through them all, which is kinda like sitting in the back of a very interesting lecture on what rock and roll was, sometimes still can be, and should be going forward. It may sound like I’m expecting too much from two fairly anonymous and criminally underappreciated dudes from Waukesha, Wisconsin, but when a large part of your life consists of a Gibson jumbo acoustic and dollar-store pen and legal pads, inspiration ain’t gonna come from the usual suspects.

It’s back to basics time. Melody. Harmony. Rhythm. Fucking competence. Short stories. Love lost….and maybe even found. Playing music for the same reason you breathe. Because you have to. And you don’t want to turn blue. Literally….and figuratively too.

I don’t care what happens. I care what I do amidst the chaos. I don’t care what I sell. I care about what I’d buy. I’m getting too old keep up with the gray hair. I just want to write about what brought it on in the first place.

Growing old but never growing up in the key. Nobody who grows old can play rock and roll. It is a young man’s game. But old age is a state of mind, which is why the BoDeans continue to be the signpost along the road that I’m always searching for when I start to grow weary. Like a blinking vacancy sign along a seemingly never-ending stretch of drab highway.

In a bit…

–tf