Blog 3393 – 02.16.2025
Singing Works Just Fine For Me
Before I took a detour in my late teens and found myself except for brief periods that the fundamentalist Christian cult I was a willing prisoner of called backsliding but have come to see as coming up for air or jail breaks I was a devoted fan of rock ‘n roll. The rock anthem Drift Away by Mentor Williams written in 1970 was first recorded by Mike Berry on his 1972 album Drift Away. The song has been since covered by many, two of the most widely known being Dobie Gray and Uncle Kracker. I actually heard Bon Jovi sing it live in concert at the Summit in Houston in 1997. He rocked the house with the famous line: “Give me the beat, Boys, and rock my soul, let me get lost in your rock ‘n roll and drift away.”
In my piece today I will provide a link to my own karaoke style version of two other songs from the seventies that speak to the power of song to not only soothe the soul and let us get lost, but also found. The first is James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James. I call special attention to the following lines:
I particularly like the last two lines of that verse for it frees my soul of the need to cling to a belief in pie in the sky in the sweet by and by, but to seek paradise, heaven, in my own heart in the nasty now and now. My dad’s name was James and James is my middle name so we two are sweet baby Jameses.
Sweet Baby James & Long Ago and Far Away
You see, religion never gave me the peace of mind and comfort that I found in singing the songs of my youth. The thing I enjoyed most about my captivity in a Christian cult was the songs especially the ones that they sang as a group. This morning on my early bike ride before day break as I concluded saying aloud my daily mantra with the words: “Come dance with me, come walk with me, come ride with me, come fly with me, come.” I decided that I will start adding after come dance with me the phrase “come sing with me.”
Your friend, fellow traveler, and troubadour,
David White
theencouragingword 