Welcome to Saturday Sonata XI, with LT.Some time in the late 80s my old friend Michael Meldrum, host of the Open Mike at the legendary Buffalo club, Nietzsche's for going on 30 years now (I saw an 18-year-old Ani DiFranco play it several times in the summer of '89), took me to see Cliff Eberhardt.
It was about the time Eberhardt's great, defiant My Father's Shoes was included on a compilation from Windham Hill Records (remember them?), and right before his first album with them, The Long Road, came out.
Eberhardt's a powerful performer, to say the least, who hits his guitar hard between precise lead licks and picks, and that particular night seemed ready to explode. Really. He seemed pissed off, and, frankly, like kind of a dick. And there was something about that I liked. It was very unapologetic.
He is also capable of great delicacy and poignancy, an example being the title track of The Long Raod, a duet with Richie Havens. It has this line, which I remember hearing way back then, and I remember feeling, in that way that great lines in great songs can make you feel, like a mysterious truth had been revealed to me, a truth I had to remember about myself, my family, my friends:
There are the ones who see the danger in you
And won't understand
Ooph. Just one piece of a lonely, pleading, plaintive, and fundamentally comforting song.
There are the ones you call friends
There are the ones you call late at night
There are the ones who sweep away your past
With one wave of their hand
There are the ones you call family
There are the ones you hold close to your heart
There are the ones who see the danger in you
And won't understand
I can hear your voice in the wind
Are you calling to me? Down the long road...
Do you really think that there's an end
I have followed my dreams, down the long road
You are the one that I met long ago
You are the one who saw my dream
You are the one who took me from my home
And left me off somewhere
Somehow I feel you are here
You are waiting in that dream
Somewhere down this road we will awake
And be at the start again
I can hear your voice in the wind
Are you calling to me? Down the long road...
Do you really think there's an end?
I have lived my whole life, down the long road
I've got to find you tonight
Are you waiting for me?
I have followed my dream
I have lived my whole life
Are you waiting for me?
I can hear your voice in the wind
Are you calling to me? Down the long road
Do you really think that there's an end
I have followed my dream, down the long road
I can hear your voice in the wind
Are you calling to me? Down the long road
Do you really think that there's an end
I will live my whole life, down the long road
I can hear your voice in the wind
Are you calling to me? Down the long road...
Do you really think that there's an end
I have followed my dreams, down the long road
