Mary’s Mercy Missives Issue #3: Guitars & Love
Dear Mary, Please tell us about your guitar. At first I was thinking "she needs to get it fixed," but I reckon there's story there?
Dear Mary,
Please tell us about your guitar. At first I was thinking "she needs to get it fixed," but I reckon there's story there?
- Sally
Dear Sally,
Yes, my guitar has a story. I purchased it to console myself after a romantic relationship ended badly. I showed up to a guitar exhibition on the fairgrounds in Nashville with a broken heart, knowing this would be the day I'd lay down the money I had saved for a rainy day. I was going to buy a guitar, no matter what, and kickstart my healing.
At some of my earliest performances, I played in Boston/Cambridge with a black Everly Brothers Gibson with a double pickguard. I bought that guitar because I saw Steve Earl playing one, and it replaced the round back Ovation I had as a teenager. One night, the black Gibson fell off the stand and the neck broke. I had it fixed, but I could never trust it. I worried that the neck would pop off again. I traded it for a brand new, blue, Taylor C112 cutaway. I bought that guitar because Nanci Griffith played one. I liked both of those guitars, but I can’t say I ever truly loved them. I told myself I didn’t want to travel the world with an irreplaceable vintage guitar that could get destroyed by an airline or stolen on the road. Looking back now, I lived with a fear of loving wholeheartedly and losing, so I settled for expediency.
This fear pointed to deeper issues, but I did not know that, yet.
I also still didn’t know what appealed to me about different guitar sounds or what guitars felt right in my hands. I had no idea which instrument made my heart sing, or which one matched the music I was making. I went for what I thought looked good, what appeared to be the right choice. I had a similar problem when it came to picking romantic partners.
I just didn’t know myself, yet.
Over the years, something inside me smiled when I played someone else’s old Gibson. I could feel the reverberation of the wood and strings in my body, not flashy, but deep and instantly familiar. Much like the acoustic guitar songs I loved on the radio as a kid in the 1970’s. With age, these Gibson acoustic guitars get lighter. The wood releases its moisture and the varnish peels off, which seems to make the bass strings resonate more deeply.
After my breakup, I needed a hard reset. A brand-new old Gibson guitar would help me restart my life.
My friend and producer, Ray Kennedy, and I walked into the guitar exhibition. We saw old Gibsons everywhere, a handful at every booth. Having played a few, including several from Ray’s recording studio collection, I was sure an old Gibson was what I wanted. Ray calmly spoke with the dealers and asked to play the guitars that were in my price range. After a few hours, we made our way around the show and narrowed it down to three guitars that we both loved. Several musicians and songwriters gathered around to help; I remember Jim Lauderdale and Gary Nicholson, specifically. We played the three finalists, Ray inspected the inside with a mirror and flashlight, and the bystanders offered their opinions. In the end, I chose the most beat up, but best sounding instrument. It was very lightweight, and the low-end absolutely boomed.
It made my heart sing - I loved it so much! The day had come when the risk to love fully was less frightening than the pain of loving halfway. Yeah, losing it would crush me, but playing it brought me so much joy! I also picked up a great traveling case and never looked back. It’s the guitar I play to this day.
It is a 1950 Gibson J-45 with a sunburst finish. It was beat up, bruised, scarred, and kinda tight because it hadn’t been played in a while. Ray figured it was sitting in a case under someone’s bed for a few years. He said it would open up more once it was loved again. After traveling with me for a bit, it surely got better (and more beat up, as I’ve added to the nicks and cuts.) My hand fits perfectly around the neck, and the low-end still makes me smile when I strum a big fat open E chord. My guitar and I are kindred - We’ve both seen a lot of miles, been through a lifetime of love and loss, taken blows, been ignored, kicked around, taken for granted, left behind, then, amazingly, cherished and appreciated again. My guitar is older than me by 12 years (her: born in 1950, me: born in 1962), a well-travelled, wise, beautiful old music maker.
My star guitar strap also has a story. I treasure it as much as my guitar. During a connecting flight to Dublin, Aer Lingus misplaced my guitar for a few days. I was booked to open two weeks of shows for Willie Nelson in Ireland and the UK, but when I got there, I had no guitar! Bee Spears, Willie’s bass player, took pity and walked me to the local music store to rent one for the show that night. Bee had provided a solid backbone to Willie Nelson’s behind the beat phrasing and guitar acrobatics since 1968. He wandered around the store while I talked with the manager to work out a rental. As I turned to leave, Bee was already outside with a bag in his hand. He handed it to me, I opened it and smiled when I saw a black guitar strap, covered with big orange and yellow stars. Bee said, “I bought a star strap for you, ‘cause honey pie, you are a star!” His kindness in that moment steadied me.
He sadly passed in 2012, but the star strap he gifted me is the only guitar strap I use on stage to this day.
I learned a lot about love through finding this guitar with the help of my friends and here’s what I now know: It’s better to love wholeheartedly, even though it’s a risk. My guitar is a part of my being now, a part of my body, like an arm or a leg or…
A heart.
And I can’t imagine wanting it to be any other way.
- Mary
Mary’s Mercy Missives Issue #2: Grief
Dear Mary, My best mate sadly passed away this year. When grieving and feeling lost, how do I find that crucial emotional headspace to write a song? I used to have lots of resilience, but these days it seems to be slipping away.
Dear Mary,
My best mate sadly passed away this year. When grieving and feeling lost, how do I find that crucial emotional headspace to write a song? I used to have lots of resilience, but these days it seems to be slipping away.
- HB
London, England
Dear HB,
First of all, I am sorry to hear that your friend passed. I, too, am dealing with the sudden loss of a close friend. I’m in shock and I miss her every single day. When I found out about my friend’s death, I dropped into the land of disbelief; a place where what happened was so far from what I ever imagined would happen that I couldn’t make myself believe it. Of course, I know the truth. My friend is gone and it cannot be undone. That said, I still can’t make myself believe it or even accept it. Not yet. There is a gap.
So precious is the time we spend together, so temporary. We humans know we are going to die. We know our loved one’s will die too. Most of us cope with this knowledge by trying to forget about it, or better yet, deny it. It makes life less terrifying. On a moment to moment basis, it would be difficult to live any other way.
You ask, “How do I find that crucial emotional headspace to write?” How does one get to the heart of things and turn feelings into words?”
These are big questions - How do I write when I don’t know what to say? How do I sing when I know my voice will be drenched in grief?
Songwriters (like most artists) are often told that their art should be uplifting, that our creations should make people happy. These voices proclaim, “No more razor blade songs! Play something happy!” This request seems innocent, but it can have an injurious effect on an artist’s willingness to share their truth. It can scare them into silence. I sometimes think that underneath the demand for constant upbeat happy-clappy tunes, there is a longing to escape reality. Escape grief, struggle, sorrow, heartbreak, death. If the happy-clappy people had their way, they’d turn all us songwriters into human antidepressants, insisting we use our music to change brain chemistry in order to suppress, alter, and rearrange human sorrow!
That said, if happy music works to bring brief relief to those who are suffering, I am all for it. There is a huge market for exactly this sort of thing, but it can go too far and result in the Disney-fication of music, the creation of a fake world where all is well all of the time.
This is not the world I live in, and it is not the kind of songwriter I am. I see songwriting as a mechanism best used to show true human emotion and convey honest human experience. It’s a vessel for asking questions more than answering them, a place for observations more than conclusions. My approach to songwriting doesn’t change when I’m grieving. I allow my feelings to be what they are, and when I have the strength, I try to find a chord progression and melody to match them. Next, I search for words to illuminate the way I feel. If a blow is mighty and my world is forever altered, it could take me months to get back to my writing desk. However, I will get back there when I am ready and able. I know I will because songwriting isn’t just something I do, it’s something I am.
You mention resilience. Resilience can be thought of as someone’s ability to return to their original state after being shattered. Another definition is the ability to adjust to or recover from illness, adversity, or major life changes. Neither of these definitions is satisfactory. As a songwriter, I see resilience as the willingness to try and write the truth as I experience it, no matter what that truth might be. Writing about life’s struggles is the way I make sense of how they have shaped me, changed me, and created the person I currently am. Resilience and courage have a lot in common.
The poet Bohemian-Austrian poet Rilke believed that language is not a tool to tell us where it hurts or how bad it hurts, but rather to build something out of the pain. I see songwriting exactly the same way. When a song does what it’s supposed to do, it isn’t simply a mirror representation of hurt. The song is a tool for alchemy, a mechanism for some kind of transformation, a personal experience made into a shared experience. Songs have the power to turn the I into a we. Does this heal everything and take away the pain? No. But it does help in ways that amaze me and lets others know that they are not alone. Songs connects us to each other's hearts in mysterious ways.
I do not know what death means. I do not know where souls come from or where they are headed. I believe we come from somewhere and are going somewhere, but no matter how much I try, I can’t conceive of where. I have a sense that we are in an eternal circle, that we somehow go around and around. I wrote a song about this many years ago called “The Wheel Inside the Wheel.”
To answer your question about writing while grieving, my answer is this: All I really know right now is that like you, I deeply miss my friend. I believe you will write about your loss when you are ready to bring yourself to the writing desk, and so will I. Once we get there, the hope is to write our truth, knowing that truth is what matters. I wish you courage, because it will most certainly require plenty.
- Mary