They take me back to my pre-teen days, when for secret reasons all his own he'd pick up the guitar, sit down and play. A lone and lonesome voice over simple pluck-strum pluck-strum pluck-strum chords, storytelling songs about failure, faith and longing. During those moments, it's like my dad became someone or something else, almost -- no longer just my dad, but a quiet presence, a gentle, calm, sometimes sad and sometimes playful sonic force dwelling timeless then and there in the room with me. What moved him to play and sing just then, I'd never know but forever be filled with this child-awe that it had.
Those songs abide like a quiet, constant stream flowing through the back of my mind -- a place within just over the hill where I know I can go and just feel the warmth of the sun and listen to the waters of good times lap at the banks on the way past me.
Most of them were originally written and sung by Johnny Cash. I think of Johnny Cash always with a warmth and fondness, like the grandfather who taught my father how to play and sing. Now Johnny Cash is an old man, a very old man. Much older than my father is. Mr. Cash's days are drawing to their end.
He sings now with an old man's voice, one seldom heard and less often sought after in a culture that celebrates youth and all things new. But as I listen to his latest album, I feel the quiet tears of knowing not only that these might be his last songs -- but because a dear one whose life is well past twilight yet sings with such an ancient vitality that it does make me "hurt" a little just to hear him.
I bought my dad a copy of the cd. I'm going to give it to him tonight, and tell him I love him for singing to me when I was young. And I'm going to make it a point to sing for my kids more often, these same old songs.
