E-I-E-I-Oh No

Well, I am in Music City. So it is only fitting that I go hear music often. I need to find some venues that are not country oriented. The formulaic nature of country songwriting gets on my nerves. I would say the songs are riddled with play on words, but I don’t think that is it. They are more like a turn of phrase that sounds clever but is quite insubstantial. Tonight, I heard “One step closer to nowhere at all.” and “E-I-E-I-OOOO” a song about the lessons you learn living on a farm. I guess. There was a woman who by her third song I had trouble not laughing. In fact, I failed. I chuckled often. She kept jerking her face away from the microphone to spare it the overload. The irony of course was that she neither had a big enough voice to necessitate such a gesture nor was she singing loudly. She also had a machine gun vibrato that made me cringe. There was the odd family sitting a few tables away. If I didn’t know he was a fictional character, I would swear the son was Lenny from “Of Mice and Men”. He walked with a glazed crazed look on his face without moving his arms. There was also a man in a wheelchair that did not use the wheels to move the chair but rather his feet. Why do you need a wheelchair if you have the use of your legs? Very odd, indeed. Then came the third set of musicians. Holy night. There was this girl that has no business being in Nashville. Her voice alone much less her brilliantly quirky music belongs in a different market. Her name was Katie something and she was magnificent. Her voice was half Rachel Yamagata and half Billy Holiday. Intoxicating, really. The kind of work that makes me think I completely wasted my youth. And I am sure my brother will agree with that last sentence.