By the Power of Nashville

We were unable to record today.

Ben and I carpooled to Gully's, we set up the room and broke out the mandolin, the bouzouki, and the various guitars in order to work on "Hosanna", and about ten seconds after Ben pushed Play, the power died. Soon we found out that Andy's was the only house on the street with the power down, thanks to a fallen limb nearby.

He called the electric service and left a message, and I was faced with the depressing truth that without electricity, I'm out of a job. While we were waiting for power I went and stood on the little bridge in Andy's backyard and watched the minnows in the creek, and I thought about ol' Wendell Berry and his distrust of technology and progress.

He's more or less a Kentucky hobbit. I love his writing, his philosophy, his wise tone, but I just don't think that I'm a better farmer than I am singer/songwriter. We can't all heave our jobs into the river and drag our wives and children to a shack on the banks, after all. Like it or not, I depend on the Nashville Electric Service, the interweb, email, guitar tuners, strings, computer programs--in short, things that Wendell would be appalled by (I think). He tills his field in Kentucky while the Captains and I fashion songs and tether them to digital media in order to shed light in the world. Different lights, but light nonetheless.

We took an early lunch break, ran some errands, came back and found that the power was still off. That was it for the day. There was nothing we could do. I came home and went and sat in the woods with my guitar and practiced my Rich Mullins cover for the tribute show next week, played through a few new songs, and wrote a bit for Resurrection Letters, Vol. 1. Sitting in the woods is good, right, Wendell?

Today was the first day of Fall, at least in spirit, so after dinner we lit a fire outside. We let the kids stay up way past bedtime, sang songs, I read a bit of Watership Down, and we put them to bed, but not before opening the windows in their rooms so the cricket sounds and cool air could float in.

I was bummed to have missed a whole day's work on the record, but enjoying a few things that didn't have to be plugged in was a nice substitute.