TomFlannery.com

Spring has sprung. For a day at least. Near 70 degrees on this Saturday. Finally the birds are louder than the snow plows.

I’ve been crazy busy….but not doing the stuff I like to be crazy busy doing. Bill paying is a real nuisance sometimes…..and unfortunately it can rarely be done in 40 hours. I’ve been living a coal-miner’s existence. Work….sleep….work….sleep. A ghastly cycle. Books await my attention. My guitar awaits my attention. My notebook awaits my attention. Family members await my attention. And there I am…..snoring on the couch, still wearing my coat and shoes.

And as I’ve been told over and over again….I’ve got it good.

Thus, America, circa 2014.

I am one of the lucky ones. It’s so odd.

I woke up this morning with a song I wrote over 20 years ago in my head. I remember the chorus and the bridge perfectly, but the verses are nowhere to be found. It was sort of a Motown-ey thing……an “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” rip….called “Only You Can Keep Me from Crying”. No idea why I thought of it, but here it is still. Stuck. Somebody is trying to tell me something perhaps. Time will tell. I can’t remember many of my songs from 20 years ago because most of them were terrible. This was one of my favorites and it’s not terrible. I think it’s quite charming. I should dust it off…when I have time.

America’s greatest rock and roll band is “The Hold Steady”. That’s my take on it anyway. And I got a chance to see them last week (with my daughter no less!) at a radio station promo show. I was front row, with my feet on Craig Finn’s vocal monitor. One of those nights you don’t forget. Boys and Girls in America.

It’s a strange thing meeting your idols. Craig Finn was some geek getting beaten up by football players at a Minneapolis High School 20 years ago…locked in his bedroom banging away at a cheap acoustic while worshipping at the shirnes of Paul Westerberg and Bruce Springteen (both of whom he eventually met). All I could think to say to him was….”Craig…how does it feel when guys meet you….and you know they’re feeling the same way you felt when you met Westerberg?” He just smiled and said….”it feels weird man..”

An unpretentious dude….albeit not as chatty as usual since he was giving up beer for lent. And now he’s one of the greatest songwriters of our generation….fronting an absolutely killer band. And by all accounts having the time of his life. I came home after the show…..and it felt strange….knowing that my rock and roll-less desk job awaited in a few hours…..while Craig and his friends were back on the bus, off to the next gig. It wasn’t envy. It just reminded me of forks in the road….and the turns I didn’t take…..and how many fucking variables there are in life.

And how if you’re a guitar player, equivocation is deadly. All in or all out boys and girls in America. Nobody who works part time is allowed on that bus.

So yea….this is what has been on my mind lately. Bits and pieces as my Pop used to say.

Only you can keep me from crying / Only you can keep our love from dying
Only you can do the things you do / Only you girl….only you….

It ain’t poetry boys and girls. But it fucking swings. Trust me.

In a bit…

–tf