Fall is upon us! This Saturday on Acoustic Blend we are exploring the theme of going back, encompassing everything that changes over time and what stays the same. There's something about autumn that moves me into a reflective and, yes, nostalgic space. I've heard it said that all change feels like loss, and I often interpret the first days of fall as a loss -- the loss of sunshine, vacation, longer days, warm weather. Our hearts tend to bundle losses together, so then my mind wanders to other things I have lost in life, which is hard because fall is SUCH a beautiful time of year. So this playlist is my own journey through change—from despair in change to hope—and I do hope you'll enjoy following along.
Lori McKenna will help get us rolling (and also establish a secondary theme of houses and hometowns) with her song “The Town in Your Heart.” A few local artists will make an appearance over the course of the hour, including Delphi native Malachi Jaggers (“Good Ol Days”), Scott Greeson (“Riverside”), and David Inskeep on vocals with Joe Peters and Michael Kelsey in the song “Houses Come & Go.”
As we wind down the hour, we’ll pause for a reading of David Whyte’s poem “The House of Belonging” followed by a hopeful song from Andrew Peterson and a masterfully written one from Richard Shindell. I overlooked the genius of the imagery in Richard Shindell’s “There Goes Mavis” for a number of years. The song features a bird being freed, a cage, and a sandcastle on the beach. The sandcastle and the cage are apt images of control and how we try to keep the world at bay, predictable, ordered. The relentless sea consistently eroding the sandcastle walls along with the child freeing the bird is a hopeful contrast. You can read on for more of Shindell’s writing (it’s all a treat) and the lyrics for “There Goes Mavis.”
Acoustic Blend airs Saturday, September 9 at 8pm EDT on WBAA AM 920 in Lafayette / West Lafayette, and streaming live on wbaa.org. You can view the full playlist below. ‘Til next month!
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You had me at David Whyte.