"Welcome to Struggleville"

February has presented some struggles, of the ordinary garden-variety type of struggle. I've struggled to pay our bills, to meet work deadlines, to not feel overwhelmed by too much to do, to prioritize wisely, and to get enough rest. Given our lives and our budget, it's always a struggle for me and D. to get a babysitter and actually go on a date, but that's finally what we did last night (our first evening out in almost three months)!

Given all the ordinary struggles lately, it was perhaps appropriate that our date was to a concert by the amazing musician/songwriter Bill Mallonee. And yes, he performed "Welcome to Struggleville" in the course of the evening.

D. and I were reminiscing and realizing this is the third time we've seen Bill Mallonee in concert. The first time was back around 1992 (we think) not long after we got married. Mallonee was the front-man for a then relatively new group called "Vigilantes of Love." They actually played in the lower lounge area of one of our college's buildings and they completely rocked the place out.

We saw him again around the year 2000 (at least we're pretty sure) when he performed solo as the opening act for "Over the Rhine" at a college near here.

And then last night, where he performed for a small audience of about 40 people at a local church, his wife occasionally accompanying him on keyboard and vocals. But still mostly just Mallonee with his guitar and harmonica and those amazing, gut-wrenching lyrics that truly capture what it means to struggle and yearn and grow as a human being.

I liked last night best. I don't think it was just the place I happened to find myself in (inwardly) though that might have had something to do with it. Seeing someone perform three times, those performances several years apart, is eye-opening. When we first saw him, he was kind of a young grunge rocker with a cool band. We were relatively young ourselves, and it was just a loud, boisterous, fun, communal kind of evening filled with lots of energy. When we saw him the second time, in a hot-box of a gym crammed with people, the solo performance was both energizing and exhausting. I remember remarking to D. that his energy felt almost manic, and it was mesmerizing but a bit disconcerting, to watch.

The energy is still there. But he's is in his fifties now, and age is showing. It's showing in craggy lines on his face, and in slower, less jerky (though still intense) body movements. It's also showing in slightly slower renditions of his songs from time to time ("Struggleville" was a lot slower than we'd ever heard it) but I loved that, because it was easier to fall into the rhythms of his highly narrative lyrics. He's tapping more and more into his folk rock and Americana roots, a la Dylan and Woody Guthrie (my husband even thinks he's starting to look like Woody Guthrie, and he may be right!).

It hit me last night that Mallonee is really, first and foremost, a chronicler, a storyteller. He tends to tell stories with his songs, sometimes in third person, sometimes in first person, and the lives he chronicles are always ragged, broken, right on the edge, people striving to survive. He performed one of my favorites last night: "Skin" (a song about Vincent Van Gogh, sung from the perspective of his brother Theo) but he also performed songs that told the stories of a Vietnam veteran recovering from post-traumatic stress, an explorer who became lost while attempting to find the summit of Everest. And of course, he described the citizens of Struggleville...a place, it turns out, where we've all lived, or at least visited for extended periods of time.

But for the first time last night, I sensed more of a serenity as he sang. That may sound strange, given the subjects he sings about and his still intense level of energy, but it was how I felt. I don't know much about the man's life, but that's just the sense I got. As though he's accepted the struggle, but has also accepted moments of peace that come dropping slow even in the midst of struggle. As though he himself is not singing from a place of struggle so much as trying, with all his might, to call our compassionate attention and our listening ears to hear the struggle going on in ordinary (and extraordinary) lives all around us.

It was good.

There are some very homemade videos on YouTube which are fun to check out (Bill playing at a backyard barbecue, also a library...the man will apparently play anywhere and everywhere, and such humility feels rare, especially for someone who has been named one of the 100 best living songwriters by Paste Magazine!). Here's a link for "Nothing Like a Train" and another one for "Solar System," two terrific songs we heard for the first time last night.