Names. A river of names.
I seem to mention ‘names’ a lot in my work. One of my favorite lines about names is from the song “Blackwing”: I named a hurricane.
I wrote the lyrics one blistering hot afternoon in the room above my parents’ garage where they let us rehearse after work during the summers. Later, when the band came back from recording American Standard, I would still stay with my folks a day here and there in between shows. Jason Pollock and I had a Tascam 4-track recorder that we would take turns using to track new stuff.
The thing about names is that they are most often used to control things, to present ownership, to impart meaning on something we don’t quite understand or can’t grasp—to make the named thing in some way fathomable or contained, or even to dismiss the named thing, to divide or cut it away.
Less often, we throw names at something to celebrate it, as a rare signifier of love and inclusion.
With “Blackwing,” I was trying to name a feeling. What would you call the tidal emotion inside you that feels like a storm?
There is something so beautiful and dangerous about the ocean. It’s so vast, yet lonesome. There’s the part of it we can see and the part we’ll never know. And it’s constantly changing. The ocean leaves and returns.
Ever feel that way?
I named a hurricane
But it don’t keep me safe from nothin’
Here’s the original 4-track recording of “Blackwing” that Pollock and I recorded above the garage. I should be much better at playing the harmonica by now:)
Yours,
JR
And sometimes names can do both simultaneously... they give you a handle on a moment or a feeling and at the same time allow you to celebrate a moment for decades to come. Thanks for sharing a name of the vast watery deep, and for being like it. Glad your tide is rising again.
Perfect. Thanks.