Music to My Eyes

An early Mark Heard song: Appalachian Melody



Appalachian melody drifting softly down
Instruments of gold and red and brown
Do not need no dulcimer or banjo-fiddle sound
For right now I'll watch these leaves come down

Chorus:
How peculiar liking old dead leaves against the sky
There is something more than meets the eye
Funny how I sit and watch these leaves come down from high
But these things are music to my eyes

Such a pretty song I see, have I been beguiled
This day is not imagination's child
Every time the leaves come down I've just got to smile
For they sing a melody so mild
Chorus

But these things are music to my eyes

--------------------------------

Mark didn't write a song about winter as I recall.

Lonely Road Part 2

One of the things that I appreciate about Mark Heard is the strength of his conviction in God. He drank, swore, and smoked - but he believed in God. He's been humiliated by a pastor during the intermission of his music set that the same pastor invited him to play - but he still believed in God. He knew his own frailty, his own faults, and the disillusionment with his dreams - but he still believed in God. He rarely went to church - but he still believed in God. He was an insider (one of the first) in Contemporary Christian Music, but was never really welcome there. As he said about himself "I'm too sacred for the sinners and the saints wish I would leave." His last handful of albums didn't directly address much about God, but they did very much so indirectly. He wanted to break out of the mold and be himself - to be true to himself. Some weren't comfortable with that style. Some (including Mark himself) weren't comfortable with the results. Yet he still believed.

He always seemed to have some confliction about himself, about people, and the world. Not so much as doubting, but it was more like strong emotions pulling on both sides of the 'tug-of-war' rope. One of his last songs seems to illustrate it best to me. I don't know really how he intended it - but he's either talking/arguing with himself or with the devil on his shoulder. He seems to both enjoy the action in the first of the lines and then mistrust it because it is fleeting or false or shallow by the time he gets to the second line. It's called Nothing But the Wind Listen

If you should see me stop and scan the hot sky

Don't let me - give me an alibi

If you should see me stoop to smell the rose

Don't let me - show me the thorns it grows

[Chorus]

If you should hear me beckon long lost years

Don't let me - burn me with the salt of my tears

If you should hear me wish upon a star

Don't let me - show me the way things are

[Chorus]

If you should feel me move toward the light

You'll shoot me down like a dead satellite

If you should feel me shake on feet of clay

You'll have me baptized in shades of gray.

[Chorus]

I can hear nothing but the howling

Nothing but the wind

And it is covering up the tracks where I have been

A) I will say nothing but a whisper

Lash me to the mast

For it was nothing but

the ghost of innocence past
B) I will say nothing but a whisper
Paralyzed of voice
Haunted by nothing but
the ghost of Paradise lost.

Lonely Road (the Song) Part 1.

Mark Heard wrote Lonely Road on his Dry Bones Dance album. It struck me at first that this song was about Jesus - extolling His virtues. While it does do that, it is only done in a passive way. The song is really a challenge to those who would try to follow Jesus. Is it a challenge? Maybe it is a warning. In any case, the song puts forward that the Son of Man walks a lonely road. Listen.

Not taking note of the fools or the wise

Being a pawn of time and chance

Not making vows when the flood waters rise

[All these are] Safer than nails through your hands.

I can't even do the first 3 - and these are safer than the lengths that Jesus went to. I especially think of the not making vows part. I don't make bargains with God (anymore). I think those who do are terribly immature to think that God is interested in "paid obedience" or "bought faith". He (God) has already paid. What humiliations to ask for more! Then, of course, I've never been in a flood that threatened me. Would I try to strike a deal with God? "I'll pray more often - and I'll go to church more regularly, too. Maybe I'll try to memorize parts of the Bible more. Just please rescue me from ...." People face floods (or other calamities), and desperate for saving, promise to God something they had kept in reserve from Him. Would I join them if pressed?

I'm not sure I wouldn't do the same if threatened with foreclosure or divorce or my children disowning me. I hope I don't have to find out the hard way.

Being a slave to the sultans of grief

Keeping the hand to the plow

Being held captive to public belief

[All these are] easier than thorns through your brow.

The third statement captures my attention. In what ways do I act because I'm interested in how others view me. And "public belief" is often more cruel than the belief of any one person. (A person might have a nuanced compassion for Tiger Woods, but public belief can only paint him "sick".) It's the curse of the sound bite, or the sensation-driven media. Strangely, those who don't care what the group thinks about them have so much more freedom, but they often walk alone. Though simply walking alone doesn't mean that one is free, nor that they are not swayed by others' perceptions.

But further than that, the statement seems to say that the person in question simply allows the "public beliefs" without really fighting - almost as if the fight would be in vain or even wrong. But Jesus stood mute before his accusers. He allowed the labels of the mob and lived there.

Even doing that, as Jesus did, falls short of what Jesus did beyond that.

Being immune to the war of the heart

And never wondering why

To bury the conflict deep in the dark

[All these are] safer than spears through your side.

This verse I understand the least. Maybe Heard is saying that Jesus controlled himself -his internal passions, misgivings, temptations - and did not let them change Him or confuse His commitments to God. Following Jesus in this is hard, but Jesus did more - and He walks a lonely road.

For him who burns with a creed and a flame

Words are as smoke on the wind

Some kind of volatile helplessness reigns

And can't fill the hearts of his kin.

To go and enlighten the doomed and unwashed

Seized with the art of sacrifice.

To carry the weight of a martyr-at-large

[All these are] easier than giving your life.

So what do we do when the passion inside us for God? When words fail? When we can't convince others and aren't able to help others sense and receive God's love? When our goals are noble and our actions nobler still? When we carry Jesus in us and it seems that the world sees us carry a corpse on us? There is something more - and it is harder. Jesus gave His life.

Chorus:

It's a lonely Road (x3)

That the Son of Man walks down.

(Image taken from Answers.com)