Dear Karen,
Dave Matthews offers us many gifts.
This is one of them.
"The Maker" starts at the 50:18 mark of this concert video.
Here are the lyrics to "The Maker," but please listen to the song first and then read
the lyrics -- or, read them line by line while simultaneously listening to the song.
Oh, oh deep water, black and cold like the nightI stand with arms wide open,I've run a twisted lineI'm a stranger in the eyes of the Maker
I could not see for the fog in my eyesI could not feel for the fear in my lifeAnd from across the great divide, In the distance I saw a lightJean Baptiste's walking to me with the Maker
My body is bent and broken by long and dangerous sleepI can't work the fields of Abraham and turn my head awayI'm not a stranger in the hands of the Maker
Brother John, have you seen the homeless daughtersStanding there with broken wingsI have seen the flaming swordsThere over east of Eden
Burning in the eyes of the MakerBurning in the eyes of the MakerBurning in the eyes of the Maker
Oh, river rise from your sleep
Songwriters: Daniel Lanois
*****
I encourage you to listen to the song that follows "The Maker" in order to get to his
remarkable autobiographical rap that begins at the 1:03 mark. (When I was 20,
I had a similar experience to Matthews' account of the "bushman" thrusting
his hand into a red hot fire pit to withdraw a buried tuber which he immediately
proceeded to eat. Does not compute. Does not compute. When I was that 20 year old,
I remember seeing a wizened Mexican campesina reach into a ceramic pot where
eggs were boiling, and -- calmly -- she withdrew one."
Once you listen to Matthews' "bushman" story, you'll either want to listen to his next
song based on that experience of his in the South African bush... or you won't.
And don't think that the song after Dave's "bush" song - a solo played by his
supporting guitarist - is adumbrated by the musical introduction.
Just sayin'.
*****
Here is Dave Matthews' Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Matthews
*****
Although my best friend ever, Steve Gibson, was a wide-ranging musician and musicologist, I remember Steve liking Dave Matthews so much that I always assumed Dave was Steve's favorite musician. Steve was also a registered nurse. He and I met in a dilapidated (but formerly grand) hotel in Santa Marta, Colombia, the building where Simon Bolivar died. Diffuse large cell leukemia took Steve at 38.
At the 1:35:05 mark, there's a riveting rap about how we have got to get it together. This segment was filmed on the anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, but it's pertinent to the latest incarnation of The Everlasting Ogre in Palestine (the root word of Philistine.)
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