Good Old Wagon

Last night I was getting into a groove. I’ve been practicing guitar, and last night my left hand strength seemed almost back to the point that the barre chords are sounding right again, and the finger picking is getting back to where it should be too. Not to overplay this, I still have a long way to go.

But last night I slipped into one of those grooves where the outside world recedes. I was noodling around with an old song I remembered from the Village Called Good Old Wagon. The finger picking is not too hard, but the chording is a little challenging. I didn’t have music for it in my collection, so I had downloaded words and chords from the internet. The version I downloaded purported to be Van Ronk’s version. But I remember hearing the man himself performing it both in New York and while he toured once in Boston. It was not right. Awful was a better way to describe it. After a while, I found myself correcting the chords and playing the right ones.

In the Groove

It was then that the groove really flowed. Who the hell knows what a clinician might say about my mental state when that happens? Musicians tend to just smile and nod, acknowledging that you are in the right place. For me, it lasted for a few seconds until there was a crash behind me.

So…just so you know after you’ve played in a few dive coffeehouses and bars crashes happening behind you tend to set off a flight ot fight response. I automatically swung the guitar off me, moved it away, stood up and was primed to run or defend. Old habits .

It turns out that it was my wife getting ready for work, and shooing the cats off a table. Something crashed to the deck in the process, and everybody reacted to my sudden reaction. The cats were halfway across the room in full cower response, and my wife was panicked.

Afterward, I explained to my wife what the situation was. It took the cats a bit longer to settle in again. They are curious about the guitar noises, but are about as attentive as your typical coffeehouse audience was at 2 a.m. on a Sunday in the Village ( back when I played in the 60s).

I hung up the guitar at about eleven to finish a post I had started earlier in the evening. But in the back of my head, I was cogitating about passion, the groove, and the way my inhalers have screwed my voice. I still have the passion, and I’ve refound the groove. Now if I only can find a way to work with the gravel voice:

You know, you’ve had your days
Don’t stand around
You’ve been a good old wagon, daddy, but you done broke down