Neither Could Dylan

Revelations for a long time wasn’t a song or a poem at all, it was a single line that I kept coming back to and simmering on and it’s the one that kicks off the song. “There is no day the music died.” 

When I was younger and really just defining my own musical tastes outside of what was coming out of my siblings or parents speakers, I started to get really into music DVD’s and musician biographies; I’d put on music DVD’s the same casual way most people turn on the evening news. 

At some point I entered a deep Buddy Holly phase – I loved his style of music and nobody else I’d heard at that point was doing anything close to it, so I consumed a lot of it and regularly watched the Buddy Holly story DVD. As anyone even the slightest bit familiar with Buddy Holly would know, on the day they announced his tragic death, a clever journalist declared it ‘The Day the Music Died’ and that phrase continues to pop up in every day music conversation. 

I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with the phrase. Although as a writer I love the use of it in that situation, surely not everyone was or would be impacted by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens or The Big Bopper Jiles Perry Richardson Jr. in such a dramatic way; There are just so many musicians and artists and everyday people that we all find ourselves connected to that would leave larger holes in our own hearts, which really is what the phrase boils down to. And then of course there’s the musing of what type of experience would be so devastating to myself personally as to make me no longer ‘hear the music’ when there is just so much of it that I love.

I believe that day surfaced sometime in late spring of 2020 for me, but more on that later.

The entirety of Revelations spilled out one day a little randomly. I scribbled it out fast after the follow up line, “always a bird with song to sing” came to mind. I suppose I just started thinking about other common phrases that are spoken about in absolutes and how many (if not all) of them are just untrue. 

I have difficulty with absolutes and believe the world exists in a vibrant fine-tooth mosaic. Just as you cannot take the Bible or your chosen religious texts verbatim, there is always a lot to consider and different avenues you can take your thought process. What’s true or right for me might not be true or right for you and it doesn’t have to be.

With that said, I gave this track the title Revelations because the nature of what came out for it felt to me like a sermon – if I were a priest or pastor, I suppose this is the kind of thing I would teach in my church. 

Official Lyrics:
There is no day the music died
Always a bird with song to sing
There is no day the music died
Only ears too tired to let it in

There is no light bright enough to blind
Only flames so hot they singe the skin
There is no man no myth no hymn
That can absolve you of your sins 

There is no lie or greater foul
Than a life short lived not worthwhile
There is no pride in conquering
If it leaves blood under your feet

There is no better time than now
There is no future with a scowl
There is no past that can repeat
As with you to it and it to me 

There is no shame in an attempt
No goal unmet than one not stepped
There is no climb more treacherous
Than one done in its descent  

There is no end without a start
There is no sea that doesn’t part
There is no book read perfectly
To a crowd aloud or silently 

There is no door that can’t be breached
With the right tools and some gritted teeth
There is no place that can hide
If you choose to be one who seeks

There is no day the music died
Always a bird with song to sing
There is no day the music died
Only ears too tired to let it in

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Keep listening and jump to track 2: State Lines