Redtree Times

Exiles: The Writing’s on the Wall, 1995

Memento mori—remember death! These are important words. If we kept in mind that we will soon inevitably die, our lives would be completely different. If a person knows that he will die in a half hour, he certainly will not bother doing trivial, stupid, or, especially, bad things during this half hour. Perhaps you have half a century before you die—what makes this any different from a half hour?

–Leo Tolstoy, Path of Life (1909)

There are days when I get up in the morning and the normal aches and pains of my middle age seem a bit different. A little more pronounced and in spots that didn’t seem to hurt this way before.

At these moments, a phrase always comes to mind.

Memento mori…

Remember that you are mortal…

The thought doesn’t frighten me but only serves as a reminder that I have a finite amount of time here to learn what I need to learn, to see what I need to see and to say what I need to say. A limited amount of time to leave a reminder that I have existed in this world.

A short time to create what I feel needs to be created…

So, I get up in the dark most mornings and trudge, sometimes achingly, to my studio and feel reinvigorated because today I live. Today I work. Today I leave a mark on this world.

And that is a good thing…

Memento mori.

For this week’s Sunday Morning Music, trying to stay with this memento mori theme, I am going with the old Creedence Clearwater Revival song, Long As I Can See the Light. Below is a fine version from the late Ted Hawkins, a name most likely unknown to most of us. He was one of those incredibly gifted artists who was always just short of meeting Lady Luck. Oh, he came across her a few times, but it was just in passing.

As she often does, Lady Luck only gave him a flirting glance before moving on.

Here in the States, he was primarily a street performer who was “found” a number of times by record producers who could never quite put it all together for him here. An album of songs he had recorded years before, Watch Your Step, was released in 1982. It garnered critical acclaim (5 stars from Rolling Stone) but was a commercial flop.

He headed to Europe, gaining much more recognition headlining shows in clubs there.  He ended up in the UK but was deported, on what are believed to be drug charges, back to the USA, reverting to being a street busker. He finally achieved a bit of a breakthrough when Geffen Records signed him and produced what might have been his breakthrough record in late 1994, The Next Hundred Years. I say might have been because Hawkins died from a stroke at the age of 58 in 1995, only months after the release of the album.

Lady Luck is a fickle flirt, indeed.

But here’s his powerful version of the CCR classic. Enjoy.

The post above is mashup of two previous posts, one from 2009 and the other from 2019. They just seemed to come together well this morning just before daylight breaks, as I listen to the rain and wind make their presence known on the trees outside the studio. Memento mori…