Woke on a Whaleheart
I noticed the other day that the first song on A River Ain’t Too Much to Love ends with a bird migrating south for the winter and the last song on the record ends with a phoenix flying out of whatever it is a phoenix flies out of. The living death of fire. I think I went through all that when I left Chicago. I had been living in a stasis there. After having moved around the country on a yearly basis, I ended up there like a beached whale. No one knew what to do with me. I just lay there waiting for the tide to come in and float me home while people stood around and poked me with a driftwood stick or threw handfuls of sand at me. I realize now that there was something big birthing in me and I had to find a suitable place to birth it. I had to get out of there– not for the old reasons of moving for curiosity– but to go home.
