Another Riverview Cafe story

Tonight was an especially good show at the Riverview Cafe Open Mike night. There was an unusually diverse mix of styles and a couple of standout performances. No one was bad, but then they never are. 

Some people wrote their own songs and some people sang other people's songs. Some people did one of each, and a few people managed to sing fast enough to squeeze in a third song. Covered artists included Johnny Cash (the same song for the second week in a row, but by different people), Patty Griffin (Twice! Two different songs. Two different people), Stephen Foster by way of Neil Young, R.E.M., The Who, Roy Clark, A song Hank Williams made famous but didn't write, and Ray Charles. A performer we'd seen before did a song I liked about The Peshtigo Fire, a huge fire I'd never heard of that was in Door County on the same day as The Chicago Fire. It had this really nice line in the refrain (I'm afraid I don't have it exact in my memory), something like:

Some people jumped in the Peshtigo River,
But that was on fire too.

Well, you know, the lines are always better sung.

There was also an unusual run on comic songs tonight. A really terrific ukulele player, who played it like a blues guitar, did some damage to his blues songs by being too funny, and a woman did a couple of specifically comic songs of an NC-17 rating that sent a couple people of delicate sensibilities into the back hall. These funny songs were kind of close together and when a crusty old duo we'd seen before came on and started a song that clearly looked to be funny I immediately thought to myself "Uh-oh, I guess I don't much like funny songs." 

It ended up being one of the most charming songs of the night. Again here's my best, not as good as the original, rendition of a few of its key lines:

I think my cat has feline dementia,
I think my cat has feline dementia,
He wants to go outside,
Then he wants to come inside,
Then he wants to go outside again.
I think my cat has feline dementia.

Again, much better when sung, with a good, low key, blind harmonica player accompanist, so you may have to take my word for it that it was delightful. 

But perhaps that last little story is the best way to sum up The Riverview Cafe Open Mike Night, really on pretty much any given night. You start out with a little feeling of "Uh-oh" and then you end up charmed, if not downright amazed.





















 

Long may you run

I am going to share something I learned today. It's a bit trivial, but it surprised me.

I was listening to an old concert from 1974. I had gotten to this concert in part because I was doing something sort of like research for yesterday's blog post. Neil Young was singing, accompanied by himself on guitar and harmonica. It sounds like there were about 60 people in the audience. In this concert he played the song Long May You Run. Apparently it was a couple of years before it was ever released on an album. I have always taken this to be a lovely, almost anthemic song of love and friendship, at once wistful and hopeful and sad. Maybe in some ways similar to Forever Young by Dylan, or One, by U2, or Woodstock, by Joni Mitchell. It is not my all time favorite Neil Young song, but I certainly have always found it bittersweet and lovely.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
have come
With your chrome heart shining
in the sun
Long may you run.

Today I learned that it is about Neil Young's car.

No, really. 

He said so. He said "I wrote this song for my car." Then he played the song.

Of course, once he said it was written for his car all the lyrics fall into place for it. That chrome heart shining in the sun thing is a real give away. It only gets more specific from there.

Maybe you knew all along it was about his car, I can be strangely inattentive to lyrics, but it was really a bit of a surprise to me.

But maybe it's okay that it's about a car. It makes me think a little bit differently about my family's cute, intrepid, durable little car. It's a Honda. It's silver. My wife and I have driven it well over 100,000 miles now.

We've been through
some things together
With trunks of memories
still to come
We found things to do
in stormy weather
Long may you run.