#10

By Digler, 2 March 2010

My grandma is well into her 90s. She’s not as sharp as she once was but she is still very perceptive; quick with a laugh and a wry comment. She still lives at home on the farm though she needs a lot of help these days. She loves to talk about the weather, sports, and politics – often in that order. She knows I’m getting a PhD and that it has something to do with business – which in her mind apparently means finance or economics because whenever I talk to her on the phone she first wants to know when I’m coming home to visit and then asks if I can hurry-up and graduate and fix Wall Street and solve all of our nation’s economic problems.

As I sit here typing this entry I am looking at a picture of her husband in my office - my grandpa, who died when I was a senior in high school. He’s on a horse, cows in the background, and he is laughing and waving, which is how I remember him. He had cursing down to an art form and he once told me it wasn’t his fault; that anyone who had to deal with farming and cows was allowed to curse. I can still vividly recall huddling with my cousin in his front yard when I was 7 or 8, repeating every curse word combination we could remember our grandpa saying. We laughed even as we felt guilty as we carried on for what felt like several minutes. I don’t think we ever did cover everything we heard him say.

I really love and respect all of my grandparents, including my wife’s. Like her grandma on her mother’s side (and her own mother) she somehow becomes more beautiful and elegant as she ages. From her dad’s mom she has an incredible capacity for hard work, for seeing the goodness in people, for empathy.

See, I’m a big fan of what is called the ‘greatest generation’. I’m so very proud of my roots and I’m so very sad that they are quickly moving on. I didn’t get to know all of my grandparents and I feel like my daughters are missing something by not getting to see their living great-grandparents more frequently. I hope we will pass on their stories and that their memories will live on.

I get the feeling people are too quick to search for the next big thing, to move from one fleeting interest to another, to constantly look to the future. There is a lot to be gained from the lessons of the past. I truly do feel like I stand on the shoulders of giants and that my parents and grandparents and beyond built a foundation for me to work with. They were no more perfect than me and I thank them for that - for learning, loving and living. Just like my grandma expects me to single-handedly change our nation’s economic outlook, they all want us to build on what they’ve done, but to be better, and to make them proud.

That’s what I like about the next album on the list – Justin Townes Earle’s Midnight at the Movies.

#10 - Justin Towne Earle - Midnight at the Movies

Most music fans will recognize the weight in his name – music royalty, really. What I love about his music is that he embraces the past while making the music his own. I listen to this album and I hear Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown in one song and Buck Owens in another. It’s like he has found the best elements of the various forms of ‘country’ music from the classics to the modern day and he’s connecting the dots – illuminating the past and pointing to a bright future – all in just about 30 minutes.

Most people will mention “Mama’s Eyes” and well they should because in that one song he directly confronts the past while seeming to be comfortable with his future. But I want to point out a couple of other songs that are nice mileposts on the journey. In “What I Mean to You” he has that playful but sorrowful feeling of a lot of classic country:

Now I don’t need no riches, diamonds or gold

No ordinary trinkets will do

And I don’t expect you to break out in song

‘Cuz I know that you can’t carry a tune

So speak low, when you speak love

If that’s what you gotta do

I need to know right now

Just what I mean to you

And the powerful imagery of love gone wrong and no one is completely innocent in ‘Someday I’ll Be Forgiven for This”:

Yeah, and if I know you
You won't have nothing to say
You'll just clear the tears from your eyes
Long enough to watch me walk away
You won't curse or scream, no nothing that obscene
You'll just tell yourself you never loved me anyway
So tonight when you leave
Put the light out on the porch
Take anything that you want to keep and leave your key in the door
And I don't want to hear you crying no tears that show regret

Cause someday you'll be forgiven for this
Oh, yeah, someday you'll be forgiven for this.

So call your grandparents, or write them a letter. Share a story about them with your siblings. And get your hands on this album.

Check out Justin on his website or watch him sing "Mama's Eyes" Live - absolutely worth checking out.

http://www.justintownesearle.com/