Love

I had a friend ... smart, musical, artistic, brutally intelligent, gentle, healthy, married to a man who adored her, young at 41. She went to St Johns for a vacation this past weekend, a place she loved to visit with her husband and friends, and looking over the sands and the ocean the after her birthday on Saturday ... and succumbing to the aching sadness she hid deep inside her heart, she killed herself.

And she's gone.

It occurred to me how precious the commodity of Love is. And Time. It's a priceless currency we often spend unwisely and wasted without even realizing it. I think Love should become important again. We must look at others though a kinder prism accepting imperfection and realizing that, often those who carry themselves with confidence and beauty, are most often hiding a great pain we can not see.

I will miss the scathing banter over songs with my friend and wish her family well.

Perhaps we all need to revisit this idea of Love especially as the music business collapses around us.  Years ago, folks gathered on the their front porches and livings rooms to sing and play together. It helped them love each other, know each other, enjoy time with each other. People played for free because they loved it ... folks listened for free because the loved it. After air conditioning and TV was invented, we retreated into a community-endorsed silence, waiting for the commercial before we dare interrupt.

About that time, business-y people figured out how to sell vibrating air on plastic discs with holes in it, and the Star system was invented as a way to sell as many of these discs as possible. The idea was to separate you from your front porch ... your own music ... as far as possible so that you can be sold on the insane idea that only the "star" was truly qualified to make good music.

What a bunch of ding-danged baloney.

WoodSongs was created as a test of this Love. It is the currency we spend with passion. The crew works for free. I work for free. The artists are not paid. Local hotels put them up for free and local restaurants donate meals. The show goes from to radio, free to public television and free to American Forces Radio.

More can be accomplished in life when fueled by passion than by payment. Love is the most powerful currency in history. It's time for artists to re-embrace this idea, to love their music and their audiences and not be so concerned with money. Bean counters ruined the music industry. Passionate visionaries with bring life back into it.

But only if we notice. Love makes us listen more than speak. I wish I had noticed the pain my friend was in. I wish I knew that she needed more people to listen to her. I can't imagine how hard this is for her husband and family, they must feel the same but amplified a thousand times more than me.