Gentle Spirits

A word from the 60's - they're alive and well.

Except for the harsh lighting, our local coffee shop and cafe is a step back in time. Once a week, it opens it's doors to young and aspiring singer/songwriters with borrowed or beat up guitars who sing of lost love, inner torment, suffering and politics. There is an abundance of long hair and tattered jeans and sketchbooks. Many carry ragged, ruled spiral notebooks and they compare lyrics and ideas over espresso and herbal tea. Each sings two original songs and each is applauded - whether for talent or effort makes no difference - they support each other and their common ambitions. Awesome! they exclaim and Way to tell it, man!

These are gentle spirits, mostly young, many still in school or in their first jobs, learning, searching and exploring. They push the boundaries peacefully, they protest through lyrics and satire. Their music is often dark and intense, metaphorical and profound, but it can also be light and playful, with a sharp wit and a bite. It's poetry and essays and commentary set to song, sometimes surprisingly good and sometimes appallingly bad. Listening to them reminds me of being in my own twenties - young, dedicated, serious, and in love - with no concept of being 30 or 40 or 50, much less 60, no concept of the future as anything but a bright road with a sunset at the end.

The world has changed beyond measure, beyond anything I ever could have imagined, just as it is likely to do for these young musicians. But the music and those who write and perform it, who dream it, goes on.