Every Moment Has A Song

Tonight I saw Glen Campbell on the Pittsburgh stop of his Goodbye Tour. I went there fully expecting to be sad…I planned to be sad, and was okay with it. And sad was one of the emotions I experienced. But I also felt thrilled, amazed, amused, touched and blessed.

I bought the ticket for other reasons than the desire to feel sad, among them the fact that I’ve always had a soft spot for the masterpieces of pop (many written by Jimmy Webb) that Campbell gave us. My father too was a fan before me. I figured the price of a couple tickets was the least I could do to say thanks, on behalf of myself and my dad, for the lifetime of great music.

But I feel the “sad” needs some explanation, because when I told some people I was going to see Glen Campbell, who suffers from moderate-stage Alzheimer’s disease and is soon to retire from music, they didn’t understand why I’d want to see something so sad. The reason became clear to me right around the time the Rhinestone Cowboy sang his last-ever Pittsburgh encore, “A Better Place”, the song in the above video. So let me explain:

My late-starting concert-going career (I was a high school senior when I saw my first show) cost me the chance to see many of the bands I grew up listening to while they were at their peak of popularity. Since attending concerts has become more of a passion in the second half of my life, I’ve seen bands well past their prime on many, many occasions. Of course, I wonder how it would have been to see Yes in ’72 or the Who’s original lineup, or the Dark Side of the Moon tour, but I’ve actually become aware of a certain attraction in seeing the same artists in their present, geriatric stage. It’s partly because I have no choice, of course. But it’s something else too.

Tonight I came to a fuller realization of what draws me to see artists in decline: it’s truer art.

If a musician is an artist (and he is of course) and one of the purposes of art is to help us to see something about ourselves (and it is of course) then the aging, well past his prime musician has as much to “say” as the pop star at the peak of his powers. It’s a different something, but equally valid. And he says it not only in his lyrics, but with his performance.

My dad taught me countless things at many stages of my life. And as his health declined and then he passed away almost a decade ago, he taught me something else: how to die. I hadn’t seen it done before, except by grandparents when I was too young to relate. But I knew my dad. He was close. And I thought he was as immortal as…me. And so as he died (with all the customary dignity with which he lived) he gave me a needed frame of reference about the process.

Worthwhile music informs our frame of reference in much the same way. Life is art, art is life. We can learn about aging, loneliness, melancholy and acceptance of fate from a lyric. Or we can see it in the performer onstage.

Glen Campbell spent 90 minutes or so showing me that even after you need a teleprompter to sing the lyrics, you can be an unbelievable guitarist. He showed me that you can do amazing things despite the wicked curveballs life throws you, especially if you have your family nearby (three of his children are actually in his touring band).

He showed me some of the same things I see each time Steve Howe walks onstage before my eyes and my brain must once again extend its comprehension of how old a rock guitarist can look and still shred it up…or when I see the two female backup singers added to a band’s lineup to get the high notes the barrel-chested lead singer once reached with ease…or when Robert Plant shows the good judgment not to reunite with Jimmy Page and call it Led Zeppelin…or when I see Roger Daltrey wearing a shirt. Artist growing old aren’t really sad unless they’re trying to act like they’re still 22. In fact, some are just growing into their songs. But they find a way to go on as artists, just as we all must find ways to go on, as whatever we may be.

Yeah, I felt a little like I was in Branson tonight, amidst the baldies and blue-hairs. But that was okay, because it was Glen freaking Campbell onstage, and I was lucky to be watching him. He’s a legend to me. Like my dad. And his courage in being up there, and his willingness to see it all through, and the poignancy of the songs all combined to move me in a deeper way than if I’d decided to see the Avett Brothers tonight instead.

Sad is great art. Glen Campbell’s songs always seemed beautifully sad to me. But all the more so now that he personifies beautiful sadness. And since the years have piled some sadness on me. I get Glen Campbell now. Because there’s been a load of compromisin’ on the road to my horizon, too.