"If I Be Lifted Up" was originally recorded to be a part of a tribute to Earl Scruggs project I've been dreaming of doing for years now..
I've heard him say many times that it's his favorite song. During the process of going through the all the songs and sequencing the project, it seems like the song belongs here too- After all the stuff about being angry and confused and Carthusian / Cocaine Blues and Crack Hotels and such, we desperately needed some light, some hope, a little encouragement...
I remember well as a young boy going with my Mother and Dad and sister Suzy to "Mammoth Cave" in Kentucky. For those of you
who haven't been there- Mammoth Cave is aptly named; it's a huge gargantuan hole that reaches for miles into the earths core. It was discovered years ago and has been extensively explored -yet to date the end of it has not been found (that I know of)...During the tour
the guide informed us that all the lights were going to turned off and we'd come as close to experiencing true utter darkness as is
possible for a person gifted with the blessing of sight to experience. Even though my Dad and Mother were nearby- it was still a
terrifying experience. That darkness was overwhelming; thick, dense, heavy - and totally unnerving. I couldn't sense my hand right
in front of my face. After a few moments, the lights came back on- and all that terribly oppressive darkness was gone. I've been in
many situations since that I could relate that experience to; No matter how dark it gets or how far down you've gone
darkness will ALWAYS flee from the face of The Light!
One such experience came after I'd been on an alcohol drinking binge. One of the most frustrating things about me is that I don't do
anything 'normally'- and drinking was no exception. After years of drinking socially and as a means to enhance pleasure or make
somebody's company more agreeable, I'd made a habit of going to the grocery store and buying a bottle of rubbing alcohol when all the
'store -bought' whiskey had run out. Fill a glass with ice, pour it 3/4this full of water and finish filling it with rubbing alcohol- that was my
answer to running out of whiskey. Anybody that's ever been on a rubbing alcohol drunk can tell you that it's not a drunk like normal
drinkers experience; it's incredibly more intense, and the wild, spinning isopropyl-induced drunk last much longer- for days sometimes.
You can't sleep it off, aspirin and water don't help, and the old "bite the dog that bit you" trick does not apply in this situation at all.
(I have my doubts that it helps in any situation...)
I'm not really sure how I got to such a deplorable place. I know a lot of drinkers that would never dream of drinking rubbing alcohol.
None of my friends and drinking buddies did. (that I know of)...To be sure my personal excesses were getting way out of hand. I had
gone from being more or less a 'social drinker' and occasional pot smoker to getting drunk and stoned every day and getting 'high'
(a misnomer if I ever heard one) on cocaine and pills and trippin' on mushrooms or acid every time I got a chance... I smoked pot for
a long time before I ever really felt like I was gettin' 'stoned'- but I always kept it around mainly for the social aspects of it. As for the
cocaine and pills and 'shrooms and such- I could take it or leave it; my main craving was for alcohol. A friend and I would make a
weekly trip to Bowling Green, Kentucky to buy a pickup truck load of "Milwaukee's Best" (at the time you could get it a lot cheaper there
than you could in Nashville, and gas was less than $2.00 a gallon). Most every afternoon I made a trip to the liquor store to buy
at least a liter bottle of "Fightin' Cock' or "T.W.Samuels or "Wild Turkey". Of course I tried to always have some 'moonshine' around too.
For a while this all seemed to work out ok (or so I thought) and I was having the time of my life (or so I thought)...playing in good bands,
making records... I did get arrested one Thanksgiving for being way over the legal limit to drive in Sumner County and for having a
handgun and a sawed off shotgun and no drivers license. I pulled the mandatory 12 hours in the drunk tank, a dear friend came and
bailed me out, and I made it to Studio 19 in downtown Nashville just in time for my session the next morning; we were recording sessions
for a record called "A Touch of the Past". I remember trying to play "Spikedrivers Blues" on the guitar with Larry Cordle and how
bad my hands and wrist hurt from being handcuffed and tossed around by the police the day before...
One night one of my very best friends happened to come by when I was in the process of concocting myself a rubbing alcohol drink,
and though we are best of friends and had done a lot of drinking and partying and lots of wild, off the wall stuff together- he cursed me
and said he wasn't going to watch me do what I was doing.....That should have been a clue that I was really messin' up-
but I didn't let it stop me........
My first recollection on waking up is of me looking down on my lifeless body sprawled out in my backyard, and feeling overwhelmed
by pity for the poor wretched creature whose lifeless form was laying there. The next thing I remember was sensing the suns light
through my closed eyelids, and my face felt like it was on fire and somebody had been trying to put it out with a sledgehammer.
My lips were parched, my throat was so dry I couldn't swallow, my body felt paralyzed, and my head was still spinning like crazy.....
I have no idea how long I laid there.
As I began to gradually become aware that I was still breathing, thoughts began to fill my head. Words and thoughts I hadn't heard in a very long time were strangely echoing from a place inside of me that I wasn't even aware of...."and God said ":Let there be Light".....
"God breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living soul"..."Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and
all these things shall be added unto you" .... "Behold!! the Kingdom of Heaven is within you". ...
All I REALLY ever truly wanted was some joy, some peace, something true and real and stable.
I couldn't stand the feeling of being separate and alone. I'll bet you know the frustrating aggravating feeling you get when
you've lost your car or house keys and you madly look for them everywhere
and the longer they are missing
the more frustrated and manic you get.
Obviously, we never find the keys 'til we look in the place they're are. ..
I thought that having money, a nice car, a good career, lots of fun friends,
and women that adored me was going to bring me everything I wanted .... and I would never suggest for a minute that these things
won't do it for some people- but after 30 some odd years- it just wasn't working for me, and trying to make it work landed me in the
backyard right in the middle of some kind of near-death out -of body Damascus Road experience that I wouldn't trade
the world and all its gold for......
I still make just as many mistakes as I ever did- maybe even more and worse ones sometimes. My struggles with addiction and
confusion and anger and fear and worry and selfishness didn't magically disappear that day either....But I do know beyond any doubt
that there is a place of Peace within our souls where the candle never flickers, and the Light emanating from there is illuminating our
way Home- where we're always welcome no matter how far away we've gone or how long we've been gone-
where Love, joy, peace, contentment, rest , hope and a sense of purpose surround and sustain us
like the ocean surrounds the fish and dolphins and whales and shrimp and amoeba ...
the place we can go anytime and stay as long as we want
anytime we choose to go there.
"You are The Light of the world" Jesus Christ
"look to The Light, and the shadows will fall behind you" Helen Keller
There's an old saying that goes something like "there are many streams that lead to the ocean"...
From what I've heard I reckon there's enough truth in most religious thought - Buddhism, or Islam,
or Hebrew , or Christian, or New Age - to at least get anybody pointed in the direction Home
once a mind is made up that that's where it belongs and really wants to go
Maybe you're like me and have felt 'let' down or deceived and ill-informed or are just plain skeptical and
don't subscribe or adhere to any religious or spiritual ideas at all-still we all must know that
there's only One Sun Light illuminating all of us, One Breath breathing all our lungs,
One Life Source animating us all, we're all eating from the same table and drinking from the same fountain...
which puts us all - black,white, red, yellow,brown, believers, skeptics, people like us
and not a thing like us all in this thing together somehow...
