The Wit, Whimsy, and Wonder of David Wilcox

A few nights ago, at the packed little artistic alcove of songwriting known as The Bluebird Café here in Nashville, I experienced David Wilcox in concert for the fifteenth time. And I was transported back to the first encounter twenty years prior at that very same locale. Very few musicians are endowed with the ability to elicit such a vast array of response and interaction. At times you can hear a pin drop, at others raucous laughter; at one turn there are sniffles as tears are fought off, and another there will be a sing-along that would make Phil Ochs proud.

In 1990, on a Compassion Artist Trip to Ecuador, my good friend Bob Bennett introduced me to David Wilcox via a cassette of his astounding major label debut on A&M Records, How Did You Find Me Here? I nearly wore the ferromagnetic oxide off that tape with repeated listens to songs about lost loves, youthful rebellion, grief, reviving dreams, relaxing in the wisdom of accepted tenderness, and longing for adventure amidst the mundane. It was like hearing James Taylor in the early 70s, but even better. Nothing was overplayed or buried in splashy arrangements; no wasted words…just the perfect verbiage and meter for each well-crafted line. It was the antithesis of everything that was going on in the music biz at that time, what with all the harpy hair metal, chest-thumping rap, and the overwrought balderdash of Michael Bolton, Taylor Dayne, or George Michael. Wilcox was such a breath of much needed fresh air.

When I heard he was coming to the tiny Bluebird, where he had been discovered, I bought several tickets, including one for Mr. Bennett, who was going to be in town for some shows in the area. Bob had heard that Wilcox was a fan of his music (David would sometimes play his “Carpenter Gone Bad”), and was excited to be able to see him for the first time, and perhaps even meet him. Right as we were arriving, I noticed David was chatting with some folks in the line outside the front door. Never one to be timid, I sauntered up and introduced myself, mentioning that Bob Bennett was with me. David’s eyes lit up. “Really?! Oh man, I dig his music so much!” I signaled for Bob to come over, and it quickly became a mutual admiration society.

As they visited, David asked about a particular chord progression on “Carpenter Gone Bad” that he had never been able to figure out. “Oh…that’s because we double tracked two guitar lines in the studio just at that point,” Bob explained.

“Well, that resolves it then!” David exclaimed, followed by his rambunctious, joy-filled laugh that has become so well known to his fans. “You don’t know how many hours I slaved trying to configure the fingering for that in the past decade! Let’s talk some more afterwards, OK?”

Bob, our mutual friend from Compassion Canada, Paul Sharrow, and I where then transported for several hours by Wilcox’s song craft, storytelling, and exquisite playing. Besides sharing all of the tunes from How Did You Find Me Here, he also played numerous other unreleased gems, and even recited folksy poems that held deep truths. Here’s one that sticks with me to this day…

"Wake up!" she said,

"You dreaming fool, 


Don’t throw your life away. 


Because life's too short and you're too smart 


To want to hurt yourself that way. 



And what's this talk about the fellow man? 


Look, its catch as catch can, understand? 


You muscle and struggle and get what you can 


Or you'll never get anywhere at all, young man. 



And what's this talk about loving everybody 


And trying to be a neighbor and helping out your brother? 


Oh, fine and dandy, but you're getting a little carried away," 
is what she'd say. 



She said, "I'm not saying that love ain't fine, 


But every little thing's got its place and time. 


Now there's people out there who want what's mine,

And they're going to try to take it away. 



So save your love for those who care, 


And buy some clothes and wash your hair. 


Just relax and don't you dare 


Start dreaming about saving the world." 



And Jesus said, "Yes, mom."

When the concert came to a close, he was given a two minute standing ovation…something not often seen in a cynical entertainment capital like Nashville, especially in a room full of songwriters.

Bob and I decided to stick around to hopefully visit some more with David. Once most of the crowd had filed out, there were just a handful of us left—mostly songsmiths. David then announced, “Let’s grab some chairs and circle up here on the stage. I wanna hear what each of you are creating.”

We all huddled on that tiny stage and took turns sharing songs. Some were pretty new to the genre, and Bob was certainly the most accomplished. That “guitar pull” (as it is known in the Music City) went on for another two hours. The camaraderie and mutual encouragement fostered by David was one of the most beautiful creative spaces I had ever been privileged to witness. On several occasions I looked at Bob and he back at me with tears welling in his eyes. It was nearly 1 AM when the club owner was the only staffer remaining…and we decided the fellowship needed to come to an end.

As I drove Bob back to his hotel, he was smiling, but quiet. After a few minutes, he declared, “You know, outside of my wedding day and seeing my children born, this has to be the most satisfying moment of my life.”

So, here I was two decades later in nearly the same seat as that first night in ’91. My hair is shorter and overtaken by more gray than the dark brown of yesteryear. David’s is noticeably thinning, and his smile lines are more pronounced. But the many journeys around the sun have deepened the timbre of his warm tenor, and his always-fluid guitar playing is so accomplished now that it is nearly perfection. In fact, even watching him change the strings in complex tunings after every song (sometimes utilizing two capos) in a matter of seconds is awe-inspiring in its own right. I have never seen anyone do it so often, so quickly, and with such precision all while nonchalantly speaking with his audience.

Normally Wilcox can pack out the five-times-larger Belcourt Theater when he comes to town now. I’m not sure why he chose to return for a one-off at this tiny eighty-person capacity club, other than for old time’s sake. In the course of two and a half hours he performed thirty-three songs, including five new ones, and one he had written in 1979. He told new stories and poems, and even did a hilarious seasonal street rap about Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. Keeping with the holiday theme, he did a glowing cover of Mel Torme’s “Christmas Song” followed with bemused wonderment over the brilliance of the chord structures within.

Later in the set, as he was setting up yet another song with his trademark vignettes, he got frustrated with himself, saying “I feel like I’m interpreting for the metaphorically impaired. Someday I’ll learn to gift-wrap presents instead of describing them while giving.” With that thought in mind, here are some random notes I scribbled throughout the night, some taken from what he shared, others from my reactions…

I play guitars as shiny as a hearse.

There is evil cast around us, but it is Love that wrote this play.

The ocean grinds the stone.

It’s all rag water and blue ruin.

When it comes to debt, red is the new black.

Spin is the new no-need for proof.

Under these cobalt skies.

Rage is lazy, and “the edge” sounds dull; love like crazy…its wonderful.

Both the high view and the muddy miles.

No need to rush this drift along the river.

When the silence of sorrow won’t leave you alone.

From 2:45 to 4:15 AM, the Waffle House serves as some sort of intergalactic portal.

The waves of change are daunting; better learn to ride the waves. Surf’s up, dude.

Start with the coarse and take it down to fine.

I like putting pieces of a picture together instead of singing the same old bad news.

We keep playing poker in the panic.

I don’t get mad at poser surfers anymore, ‘cause the ocean is so big, it’ll work on ya.

We all need some musical medicine.

Songs are supposed to be about emotion, and not ideas…but here’s an idea song.

It’s impossible to get a snapshot of meaning.

You can’t capture wind in a box..

If a swan can have a song, then I think I know that tune.

Staring at a math problem that is trying to calculate the incalculable.

One hundred miles of vista represented by an inch.

The old guitars have their stories, but by now, so do I.

There is so much wit, whimsy, and wonder in a David Wilcox concert, that any of this seems like a first grader trying to diagram the inner workings of Hoover Dam. I’ll just leave it with some of David’s own words:

There's just too much view to capture

When we stand on sacred ground


Though my mind cannot explain it,

My heart's filled up to the sky


I know words could not contain it,

But I'm fool enough to try

(“No Telling Where” by David Wilcox from Airstream, 2008)

My Favorite U2 Story

As the excitement builds here in Nashville over U2’s July 2nd appearance (their first since playing MTSU in ’87), I’ve been reminiscing about one of my favorite concert experiences from the sixteen times I have seen this stellar band.

It was early spring of 1985, and The Unforgettable Fire Tour was sweeping across America, much like the burgeoning sales of the album of the same name. Fueled by the massive success of “Pride: In the Name of Love” on MTV and radio waves, the band’s popularity was moving well beyond the collegiate market. That single, an ode to the power of activism draped in love, was given more focus than any previous U2 song that had addressed the same theme because it was about the ideologies of a single man: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Upon arriving at the Omni Arena in Atlanta with a carload of friends from central Tennessee, I needed to verify if we were to get our backstage passes. I went to a bank of pay phones outside the coliseum to call my contact inside the building. While I was placed on hold, I turned to the person who was trying to make a call to my right. I say person, because for a few moments, I couldn’t tell if it was a girl or a guy. Wearing bib overalls, combat boots, blackened nails, heavy black eye liner, dozens of piercings about the eyebrows, nose, lips, tongue, and ears, sporting a 15 inch black-spiked Mohawk with shaved sides and tattoos too numerous to count covering neck, temples, arms, and Lord knows where else. This was one fierce looking soul.

As they were fumbling to find sufficient change, I offered a few quarters. Establishing eye contact, my gesture was met with a grunt, and the coins were grabbed out of my hand without the slightest hint of gratitude. I love to “people watch,” and was fascinated. I finally realized this was woman, perhaps early twenties, when she began to talk with the person on the other end of the receiver. I didn’t want to appear to be eavesdropping while I was still on hold—but I could tell she was vexed about something. A few times our gazes would meet, and she would glare at me as if I was representative of everything she scorned.

She was growling numerous invectives towards her caller and her circumstance, and then she was placed on hold. I asked if everything was OK, and she just frowned intensely and turned her back.

She wore her anger not only on her sleeve, but on and in her skin. I wondered if all the pain she went through to make these statements even came close to what she really felt even deeper. She didn’t have to say “I’m pissed and fuck you for noticing”…her entire being radiated it.

As I continued to wait, I thought, how on earth can anyone break through with someone this distraught with themselves and their lives? We are all given numerous divine appointments each day to show something of Christ within us to others, or for Him to reveal Himself to us through someone else. Even though this woman was a complete stranger, and she rejected my meager efforts to be kind, my heart went out to her. I prayed something along the lines of “Lord, I know you love this girl. But she sure is making it hard for anyone else to. Whatever you can do to reach her, please do it…she seems so mad at everyone, and I’m afraid she’s even angrier with herself. Please help her, ‘cause I sure know I can’t.”

Finally my band management contact got back on line, and I finished my business. The punk chick resumed her argument on the phone, and I nodded at her one final time as our eyes locked. Once again, she growled and turned around.

Upon returning to my group about twenty feet away, several mentioned they had never seen such an intense looking person in all their lives. I concurred and, to my chagrin now, condescendingly laughed that “only God could reach someone like that.”

After a great opening set from Lone Justice, U2 proved they were indeed ready for the transition from theaters to massive structures. The starkest of light shows gave all the more power to Bono’s gift of breaking down that invisible wall between performer and audience. The crowd was on their feet for the duration, bopping along, dancing, pogoing, and swaying, holding lighters aloft by the thousands during “MLK.” And singing--Lord Almighty, were we singing. Many times louder than the band’s tens of thousands of watts could produce.

The band seemed particularly energized by special guest Coretta Scott King, Martin’s widow, that evening. She had hosted them at his Peace Center and her home earlier that day. It was obvious they wanted to show her their best as a way of honoring her husband’s legacy.

Bono had flown his father, Bob, over from Dublin for this gig, too. It turned out it was his birthday, and he wanted his dad to celebrate it for the first time outside of Ireland. Bono even introduced him to the audience at the same time as Coretta King as they sat by the soundboard in the center of the hall, and they were warmly greeted by the diverse concoction that made up the gathering.

About an hour into their set, Bono shared one of the most heart-felt introductions I’ve ever heard from him:

“We are so humbled that so many of you came out to see us tonight. No one thought we could fill 4,000 seats at the Civic Center here last year; let alone what has happened tonight. We are so thankful to be this little rock band with a dream. We come from the lower middle class in Dublin, and while we’ve been so blessed with success, we know that many of our friends are still stuck in bad situations back home.”

“Take my mate, Benny, for instance. Benny was the smartest kid in our neighborhood. Good lookin’ too. He got all the girls. Funny. Even a way better singer than me. But, like so many in a country torn by political strife and an unforgiving economy, Benny just didn’t catch a break like we did. He’s been struggling with unemployment for the last few years. His confidence was shot. Benny, who had once been so full of life, was now giving in to depression…anger...resentment. He had given up hope. He started getting involved in booze, and other shit that sucks all hope out of your soul.”

“A few weeks ago, Benny had his 23rd birthday. We were all hoping it would help get him out of his funk. Unfortunately, his girlfriend gave him just enough heroine---as his gift---to kill him. This is for Benny. This is “Bad”.”

Edge began the contemplative, pulsing staccato tones that frame the building emotion of one of U2’s most powerfully empathetic songs, and Bono began the painful recollection of his friends’ plight as he sang…

If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would let it go
Surrender, dislocate

If I could throw this lifeless
Lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame

If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the day

If you should ask then maybe
They'd tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Bruised silken skies and burning flack
Colors crash, collide in blood shot eyes

If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would let it go

This desperation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation

Let it go, uh-huh
And so fade away….

Bono’s yearning wail hearkened to those thoughts of the Apostle Paul, who longed so deeply for his readers when he claimed he’d be willing to take on their infirmities, doubts, and fears in order for them to find freedom in God’s acceptance and grace. As the song was churning upward into one of its many crescendos, Bono held his hand behind him to signal the band to bring the volume down, quietly vamping on the rhythm and chord changes as he paced the stage.

He was looking for someone—he wasn’t sure whom—but he was surveying the crowd. Many on the main floor had their arms outstretched as if to say “Me! Pick me!” He suddenly stopped his search and pointed towards a cluster of people about seventy feet from the stage and signaled for a particular person. The crowd grabbed a guy, and hoisted him up and were going to “hand pass” him over the sea of people to the stage.

Bono wildly signaled No! No!...not that one. Then pointing again as if to say Yes, THAT one! Suddenly, pushed up over the throng, I saw a spiky punk. As she was being shuttled by enthusiastic hands towards the stage, I looked at my friends down my row, and we all simultaneously said, “it’s that punk girl from outside at the pay phones!”

Once she was pushed up over the barricades onto the stage, it became apparent to everyone in the building that Bono had chosen the most undesirable person he could find. Someone that most would turn away from. Someone who would choose that alienation as opposed to being vulnerable.

As the band continued playing the throbbing riff over and over, Bono took her by the hand, meekly whispered in her ear, and then, like a complete gentleman on prom night, he began to slow dance with her—his right arm around her back, and the other holding her right arm aloft so sweetly. Slow, unhurried, tiny lock steps between the two moved them in a small circle. She slipped her arms around his shoulders and leaned into his neck. He embraced her so tenderly, and they rocked quietly back and forth to the somber beat. After about thirty seconds, it became obvious that she had started crying…her shoulders heaving, her whole body vibrating in deep sobs. She was now leaning heavily into Bono, and he kept them gently swaying.

I looked through flooded eyes at others in my row. All of my friends were crying, too. I looked behind me to see people wiping their cheeks and chins. I surveyed everywhere around, and it was the same. I looked out to the sound/light riser where Bono’s dad and Mrs. King were seated, and they were weeping and dabbing their faces with handkerchiefs. It is twenty-six years later, and I’m still reduced to tears as I type this.

That was one of the holiest moments I have ever experienced. The crowd, which had been a surging cacophony of rock celebration just a few minutes earlier, was utterly hushed—enraptured by this redemptive dance.

After perhaps another minute, Bono stopped their movement, and placed his hands on her shoulders, holding her out at arm’s length in a strong, admiring, kind gaze. Again he pulled her close and whispered into her ear. Having gotten to know Bono during those early tours, and from what I gleaned from other associates who know him well, I imagine he told her something along the lines of “You know, you don’t have to try so hard. I love you, and so does Jesus. There are others who want to love you. Let ‘em…it’ll be alright.”

He then took her hand like she was royalty, and led her regally over to the side of the stage where he instructed the stage manager to get her safely back to her seat. The charismatic singer turned to Edge, Larry, and Adam cranked his fist several times and they launched headlong back into the primary rhythm. He exclaimed with all the power he could muster, and we joined in full-throated accompaniment…

Let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so fade, fade, fade away

I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no no

This wasn’t a dream. We witnessed God in action. We all sang along through tear streaked faces, many of us with a catch in our throat. But we did sing. I believe the Holy Spirit was so thick in the Omni that night that you could almost reach out and touch it.

God most certainly did something wonderful for that girl. I often wonder how her life changed from that point forward. As for the other 17,000 in the arena, I wonder if they are still impacted by that moment as I am.

As for me, I do know this—I will never forget how God reminded me that even the most off-hand prayer that I offer can sometimes have dramatic consequences. He wanted me to know that even half-hearted intercessions for strangers are sometimes part of the fuel needed for His redemptive energy to spark into action. I need to remember this always.

It was indeed a divine appointment that I will treasure. It causes me to be wide awake—not sleeping—in anticipation of what He can and will do if I make myself available.