{"id":50820,"date":"2020-12-31T01:22:29","date_gmt":"2020-12-31T10:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/?p=50820"},"modified":"2021-01-07T16:30:02","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T01:30:02","slug":"eadythanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/eadythanks\/","title":{"rendered":"Jam Session: 2020 NYE with the Cornelius Eady Trio"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.7.7″ custom_margin=”-4%||||false|false”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”]Cornelius Eady offered this wonderful piece to RIFF<\/em> just before Thanksgiving. Happily, we share it now as we look back and also forward. Many of us found 2020 to be a trying year, and, yet, as we move into 2021, even with “sharks circling the raft,” we still have a lot for which to be thankful. Challenges always force us to grow, whether we want to or not. The poetry of this song brings so much to heart, opening us to a New Year with readiness to face the future.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\tNational Book Award<\/strong>-winner and Pulitzer Prize<\/strong>-nominated poet Cornelius Eady<\/strong> has set his poetry to song with the Cornelius Eady Trio<\/strong>. Eady’s songs tell the story of passing time, the Black-American experience and the Blues in the style of Folk & Americana music. Guitarists Charlie Rauh<\/strong> and Lisa Liu<\/strong> join Eady to create layered and graceful arrangements to bolster Eady’s adept craftsmanship as a songwriter, lyricist, and poet. Cornelius Eady Trio<\/strong> has performed at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, AWP Conference, Peabody Essex Museum, and Hill-Stead Museum and recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, TN.\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.7.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”4.7.7″ background_color=”#0f1b1e” background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_padding=”2%|2%|2%|2%|true|true” box_shadow_style=”preset1″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.7.7″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_margin=”||5%||false|false”]<\/p>\n

How to be Thankful<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I had read once, in some dim interview, a long time ago, that Bob Dylan had written one of his great early songs, either \u201cMasters of War\u201d or \u201cA Hard Rain\u2019s Gonna Fall,\u201d in a hurry.\u00a0 This was around 1963 or 64, the Cold War was heating up in real fast, and that was impacting his writing: get it done now, or you might not have another chance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe I got the details wrong, but I do remember the urgency of his answer, and this song of mine, \u201cThanks,\u201d was probably written from the same sense of the days ticking down towards something unpleasant, in this case, the Corona virus.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was at the height of the first round; in the Spring of 2020, when the beds in New York were filling up, the refrigerator trucks were pulling up at the hospital loading docks for the overflow of bodies, the streets were bare, terms like \u201crush hour\u201d were almost quaint, and everyone was guessing and mainly getting it wrong; you didn\u2019t need to wear a mask: you did need to wear a mask; it was only sweeping away the old like a Darwin Broom; it was plucking kids from the rest of their youth.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I noticed at a certain point was the arrival of text and phone calls from people I hadn\u2019t seen for a long while\u2014just to hear your voice, just to catch up, just to know if you were still vertical.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it occurred to me, for the first time\u2014our apartment in New York is only a mile or so away from the World Trade Center\u2014that this might be something that could drift quietly into our door and lives, and detonate everything. \u201cThanks\u201d was one of a series of songs I wound up calling \u201cPandemic Folk Song,\u201d mainly written between mid-March and August, recorded remotely with my Folk Trio\u2014myself, with guitarists Charlie Rauh and Lisa Liu. The first four stanzas were for my wife\u2014just in case. The others are for what came through the phone and WiFi. <\/span><\/p>\n

As Joni Mitchell (and William Bell) wrote, you don\u2019t (miss) know what you\u2019ve got (your water) till (the well) it\u2019s gone (runs dry). Or as Woody Guthrie wrote as the dust bowl rolled towards your town like an angry, drunken fist, it\u2019s probably good manners to turn to the person you\u2019re about to die with and say, \u201cSo long, it\u2019s been good to know you.\u201d Just so they won\u2019t leave this world wondering.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_4,3_4″ _builder_version=”4.7.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”1_4″ _builder_version=”4.7.4″ _module_preset=”default”][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”4.7.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.7″ _module_preset=”default” text_text_color=”#dbdbdb” header_text_color=”#ffffff” header_3_text_color=”#ffffff” background_color=”rgba(8,63,89,0.88)” custom_margin=”-16%|8%|||false|false” custom_padding=”5%|5%|5%|5%|true|true” box_shadow_style=”preset1″]<\/p>\n

Thanks<\/span><\/h1>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Words and Music: Cornelius Eady<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t make it out of this one,<\/p>\n

If the clouds burst and sweeps us away<\/p>\n

If the game gets called on count of darkness<\/p>\n

And the clocks run down today<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If it\u2019s high noon at the honeymoon<\/p>\n

If sooner or later is here<\/p>\n

In case it was missed between our kiss<\/p>\n

Or said out of shout of your ears<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thank you, baby<\/p>\n

Thank you friend<\/p>\n

Some things come and go<\/p>\n

Some things never end<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the bottom of the ninth<\/p>\n

And two men out,<\/p>\n

The sharks are circling the raft,<\/p>\n

Me and you, we had a good ol\u2019 time<\/p>\n

We put some pins on the map<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So if the Devil is calling the tune<\/p>\n

And world is learning the dance,<\/p>\n

A tip to the hand that pulled me along<\/p>\n

When the odds weren\u2019t even a chance<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thank you baby<\/p>\n

Thank you, friend<\/p>\n

Some things come and go<\/p>\n

Some things never end<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The cold flames that still hold a spark<\/p>\n

The errors and regrets<\/p>\n

The pal that grew up away from your eyes,<\/p>\n

The grown up you never met.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The restless souls you could not hold<\/p>\n

But left a spark in you,<\/p>\n

The wonder ifs, and Auld Lang Syne<\/p>\n

Time to get a message through:<\/p>\n

Thank you baby,<\/p>\n

Thank you, friend<\/p>\n

Some things come and go<\/p>\n

Some things never end<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The phone rings, the text bell dings<\/p>\n

It\u2019s old so-and so<\/p>\n

You haven\u2019t seen hide nor hair<\/p>\n

For 30 years<\/p>\n

They just have to let you know.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A long-distance toast before we\u2019re a ghost<\/p>\n

Before things turn severe<\/p>\n

If you die before they wake<\/p>\n

They just have to make it clear:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Thank you, baby,<\/p>\n

Thank you, friend<\/p>\n

Some things come and go<\/p>\n

Some things never end.<\/p>\n

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Listen to\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>THANKS here<\/span><\/a><\/h2>\n

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CE: Vocal; Charlie Rauh & Lisa Liu: Acoustic Guitars; Erik Alvar; Electric Bass. Arranged by Rauh & Liu. Mixed by Lisa Liu.<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Cornelius Eady offered this wonderful piece to RIFF just before Thanksgiving. Happily, we share it now as we look back and also forward. Many of us found 2020 to be a trying year, and, yet, as we move into 2021, even with “sharks circling the raft,” we still have a lot for which to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":52272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']https:\/\/imagery.zoogletools.com\/u\/224634\/547d09ad662222d9d671fa092b62e7359813a612\/photo\/ce3-cover.jpg[\/author_image] [author_info]National Book Award<\/strong>-winner and Pulitzer Prize<\/strong>-nominated poet Cornelius Eady<\/strong> has set his poetry to song with the Cornelius Eady Trio<\/strong>. Eady's songs tell the story of passing time, the Black-American experience and the Blues in the style of Folk & Americana music. Guitarists Charlie Rauh<\/strong> and Lisa Liu<\/strong> join Eady to create layered and graceful arrangements to bolster Eady's adept craftsmanship as a songwriter, lyricist, and poet. Cornelius Eady Trio<\/strong> has performed at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, AWP Conference, Peabody Essex Museum, and Hill-Stead Museum and recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, TN.[\/author_info] [\/author]<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[103,104,102,24,105,183],"class_list":["post-50820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jam-session","tag-black","tag-blues","tag-jazz","tag-poetry","tag-songs","tag-thankfulness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writersatlarge.com\/riff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}