Michael Smith has been compared to John Prine, in that his songs were unique and his talent underappreciated (but those who did know of his gifts were devoted followers). He was hilarious and gregarious on-stage and more quietly private out of the limelight. I had the pleasure of hosting him twice, the first time in my Heart's Desire house concert series (my living room!), on May 8, 2002... and the second at the Labyrinth Cafe concert series (in a co-bill with Nick Annis) on May 9, 2010. His songs and stories were captivating, and his shows were pin-drop quality. We didn't want to miss a word of hilarity (tears-streaming-down-the-face variety) or poignancy (eliciting a different kind of tears). Exquisite and literate.
Smith's original compositions pendulumed from the ridiculous (Zippy and The Princess and The Frog) to the sublime (There and, of course, The Dutchman). I recommend taking the time to Google his videos on YouTube and reading his lyrics (not at all a comprehensive list) here. "A master craftsman", someone recently called him. A major understatement. We will miss you, Michael Peter Smith... 💔
NR: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (engaging in a one-on-one book club with a long-distance, long-time dear friend... 😍😍😍 )
SONG: We Become Birds by Michael Smith (with Anne Hills)
BOOK: Songwriting by Michael P. Smith (not actually a book, but a CD. Michael talks. Part Master class. Part musical memoir. All Michael! The long awaited recording. Singer/songwriter Michael P. Smith reveals the inner workings of his songwriting process, tells stories: from first song and first guitar, to the inspiration for (and secret source) of his best known song The Dutchman, and performs this, and other songs, with distinctive Smithesque style. This winning recording offers a glimpse of this singular artist’s musical landscape, confirming why he remains a master in the American folk lexicon, revered the world over.)
POEM: The Man with The Blue Guitar by Wallace Stevens (below are the first three stanzas, of thirty-three. The entirety can be found here.)
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, 'You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.'
The man replied, 'Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.'
And they said then, 'But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.'
II
I cannot bring a world quite round,
Although I patch it as I can.
I sing a hero's head, large eye
And bearded bronze, but not a man,
Although I patch him as I can
And reach through him almost to man.
If to serenade almost to man
Is to miss, by that, things as they are,
Say it is the serenade
Of a man that plays a blue guitar.
III
Ah, but to play man number one,
To drive the dagger in his heart,
To lay his brain upon the board
And pick the acrid colors out,
To nail his thought across the door,
Its wings spread wide to rain and snow,
To strike his living hi and ho,
To tick it, tock it, turn it true,
To bang from it a savage blue,
Jangling the metal of the strings
[Michael’s songs (he actually had a show called And the Poet Sang, created for the Poetry Foundation) set poems by F. Garcia Lorca Five in the Afternoon, Wallace Stevens Blue Guitar, Chilean poets Gabriela Mistral Swallow and Pablo Neruda, Irish poetry Songs of the Kerry Madwoman chamber opera, poems
by Patricia Monaghan, and Chinese Tang Dynasty poets Painted Horse. Passages from Robert Cole’s The Spiritual Lives of Children were transformed in We Become Birds.]
QUOTE(S), both by Michael Smith: "I realize my life was totally complete and everything I asked for in my life was there. Was there for me. And I felt so grateful. I felt so grateful. I had a wonderful true-life adventure."
“If people sing my songs after I’m gone, they need to get the chords right.”
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