Earlier this year, for my 50th birthday, I hired a sound engineer for my gig-turned-party and we were able to get some nice recordings.
This one, “Drive Straight Through,” really captures my half century on this rock quite nicely. I wrote it back in 2013 but it’s power and meaning grow for me with each passing year as I see the direction my mind was pointing even before I realized where it was taking me.
Here’s a bit of the lyrics:
There is a place I like to think
We can find our way back to
Somewhere in time and space
Not far from here. We can just drive ourselves straight through.
Headlights burning up the highway
Moon-beamed clouds in our rearview mirror
Wide open starshine in a Guthry skyway
Love can be no clearer
Love can be no clearer
You can hear it below:
There are lots of places I’m pointing here but the biggest is that there’s a place I think we can get to that is near to us on our road trip through life. That we can jump the boundaries of space and time into an open, timeless experience of life on life’s terms. A place where “home can be no nearer” with wonder and love all around.
And the reprisal at the end — an homage to one of the happiest songs ever written — drives home the power of that space: I can see clearly now. The rain is gone. Then, I mash it up with the chorus of the song I wrote when my daughters were born.
All the pictures are from various trips I’ve made including the Redwoods and Salt Spring Island.
How clearly are you seeing?