From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V5 #98 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Sunday, April 20 2003 Volume 05 : Number 098 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Re: shindell-list-digest V5 #95 [Brian Weiland Subject: [RS] Re: shindell-list-digest V5 #95 On Thursday, April 17, 2003, at 04:55 AM, Donna wrote: > In "By Now" Richard paints a devastating scene without ever spelling > it out. > It's what they teach you in every writing class: show don't tell. > "Fishing" > has a kind of redemption at the end because the man does not betray his > friends, but there's no redemption in "By Now." Except perhaps that > the song > exists. > > I don't know how Richard can portray such terrible sadness without > making his > listeners want to eat the business end of a gun, but he manages. I > guess > he's--duh--an artist. I have not seen Richard in almost ten years, but I was there fairly early. I saw him at the Montague Book Mill with Dar Williams sometime in maybe 1994 or 1995 and when he played "By Now" he described it (I'm paraphrasing) as a great theme song for an anti-hitchhiking campaign. That summer or maybe the next he played the Wintertide Coffeehouse on Martha's Vineyard where I was volunteering at the door and afterwards we hung out at my house late into the evening. He showed me how to play a few of his songs and then spent the night on my couch, and in the morning he gave me a copy of Sparrows Point autographed "Thanks for the place to crash." I do not remember if he played "By Now" that evening, but a year or two later he returned to the Wintertide and I had the honor of introducing him. The Wintertide, lamentably now gone, seated maybe 40 or 50 people and it was not full. The room was warm, the people were all fans, and Richard sang beautifully and emotionally. When he was asked to play "By Now," though, he said, "That song even creeps me out!" I have not seen him since then, but I got the impression that he rarely plays it anymore. No real point, just thought I'd share my little piece. ~Brian ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V5 #98 **********************************