Magical Thinking

It’s seven o’clock Central Daylight Time on a Sunday night; I really would prefer to be at the Saxon Pub, but I’m headed East toward New Orleans on I-10 instead. Last Sunday a promise was thrown out to cover Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” tonight at the Saxon, but I’m missing that.

Even at 75 miles per hour, there are more songs than grasshoppers bombarding my windshield.

I just passed Opelousas and thought of the song “Sweet Relief” that mentions it. I recalled the young friend of mine that used to play guitar with me in Houston who was so fond of Maria McKee that he followed her all over Europe one year. Check out Maria’s cover of “Sweet Relief” on the tribute CD for Victoria Williams. Back when Victoria was diagnosed with MS, other musicians covered her songs on a benefit CD. My Cajun friends Barrow and Gregg used to play that CD at their apartment back in Houston.

And how could anyone drive through Louisiana and not think of the other Williams, Lucinda, headed back to the Crescent City?

Egrets dot the rice fields, and I hear Adam Carroll's song "Rice Birds." Scrappy just covered it last Sunday at the Saxon. You can hear Adam's version on YouTube.

Roadside billboards advertise boudins and cracklins. I remember being seven and believing Neil Diamond was singing about my grandmother Rose in "Cracklin Rosie."

When we are children we pass through a phase called magical thinking--Troy was just talking about this with Dano and me Saturday at lunch at Hyde Park. It’s about three parts ideas of reference (they teach you this is pathologic in med school) and ten parts hope. In Human Development classes, they say it’s just a stage, something you move beyond as you age.

As I age I realize what I cherish about music is that it tells me magical thinking is not a stage of development but a state of being that we can all check into when we want. I still believe. And hope, it’s still in my diet. Troy sang about finding it in so many places during his show at Antone’s Friday, and he mentioned at lunch how many people in Austin still have it. Check out an early version of his song on YouTube.

I’m preparing to cross the Mississippi—getting my camera ready to capture twilight on the surface of the water. I’m back at my grandfather’s farm on the river. I hear the calliope on the Belle of Louisville. I remember the song "Riverside." I think of all the wonder still to come.

And oh, the wonder…

Felt the lightening

and waited on the thunder.

Bob Seger, “Night Moves”