From A Spark To A Song – “Mightiest Of Guns”
“Mightiest Of Guns”… there are some songs that, for some strange reason,
are faithful companions to very defining moments in life,
like fresh water on deep wounds, blessings in the deepest time of need,
vivid reminders of the brightest of all miracles lighting you up
through the profound desperation of an everlasting night…
This is what “Mightiest Of Guns” is for me…
When asked to participate in the special blog project “From A Spark To A Song” for the “Vague Souvenir” album, I must admit that I was somehow hesitant. Not about the nature of the project, which is a real heartfelt idea, but mostly because I believe that honest words and sincere sounds don’t need additional explanations or revisionary insight. Once sowed, the seed’s soul always reveals its true self as it blooms in the heart of the loved ones whom you shared your emotions with. There’s no need to pretend, no need for diluted colors to water paint the shadows reflected by the lights and darkness of your secret chamber… for me, art is life. You can hide, you can cheat, you can lie and you can subdue, as much as you can bless, confess, forgive, let go and resurrect. One way or the other, this is life. And it’s based on that fundamental belief that I decided to be part of “From A Spark To A Song”. Life, as I experienced it, as I felt it, as I grew through it. Life, as it is.
I have always been fascinated by the soulful nature of genuine folk artists. Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Jackson C. Frank, Nick Drake, Al Stewart, as well as Sandy Denny, Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith are amongst those rare songwriters that allowed me to feed my mournful nature with heartfelt joy. Life as art, art as life, something I think is pretty rare to find in todays’ art. Something that will move me deeply inside, something that will arise the purest of all emotions, those that I never really wanted to experience… Those who left me without any defensive self-consciousness… Those who are showering my emotional illusionary dry land with enough light to expose the darkest of all stubborn adjuration that I kept feeding my soul with. No entertainment here, only a life changing invitation offered through the generous heartfelt creation of somebody else’s brokenness… Life, as it is.
And the colors of life, like soulful art, reveal themselves in the most unexpected of ways to any longing heart, even to the bleakest one, such as mine. I do remember the moment when I first heard “Mightiest Of Guns”. Being a fan of AA Bondy ever since he released his first album American Hearts, I bought When The Devil’s Loose on its release day, like I usually do for artists I really love. And like most of the time, I didn’t listen to the album right away. I wasn’t ready (yeah, I’m that type of person…). I wasn’t ready to really immerge myself in words and sounds that I knew had the ability to fill my heart with vivid emotions of life. I was going through another of my hopeless and sorrowful emotional low points and I didn’t see myself emerging from that self-acknowledged state of heart and soul in any possible way. I was slowly drowning in my depressive ocean and had no intention of going against the descending spiraling stream I designed myself to disappear into. I had decided to simply become the lie I was accused of being. I thought that by wearing an apathetic heart it would be a much easier costume to fit my broken heart, rather than assume the fragile state of my sympathetic heart towards the left behinds and the repudiated, towards the very likes of who I have always been. Some sort of slow suicide for my broken heart, I thought, a daily emotional harakiri rather than a satisfying bullet to the head. Personal peace wasn’t even a desperate last prayer back in the day, I was dead in many ways.
One morning, that I thought would have been another front, loaded with personal miseries and other self-crafted nonsense, I picked up my iPod for another hopeless walk-away and somehow the song “Mightiest Of Guns” started playing instead of Nick Cave’s The Boatman’s Call, an album I was obsessed with at the time. “Mightiest Of Guns” was the first song of the zillions of other songs I probably never truly listened to on my iPod. It was a different vibe from The Boatman’s Call’s first song “Into My Arms”, but somehow not that different. Emotions, even the illusionary ones we create to pity ourselves with, have different angles… and “Mightiest Of Guns” was exposing quite a different angle of the affective state of mind I was well aware of being in. Some words were too vividly reflecting light on my make-believes to be fully ignored, sincere words too well dressed to be denied by the counterfeit writer I was slowly becoming, honest metaphorical images too genuinely daubed to be ignored by the apprentice painter trying to hide his emotional frigidity with his false obsession for perfect lines and precise reproductions.
In other words, that true and honest piece of art, like a defining spark of life, was inviting me to revisit and reevaluate the never-ending lies I was embodying my every new beginning with. I didn’t feel the words were intended to expose my desperate decision, to fraudulently live an impotent and emotionless living dead type of existence, but I truly welcomed them as an invitation. I wasn’t ready to let go just yet. As my “Sunday birds swung low” for so long, as my “shadows go like ghosts across my room” for as far as I can remember, as I “kept fighting to keep my blues”… I was dreadfully looking for something real enough to quench my thirst for inner peace and freedom. I was now wondering when was the last time “I laughed because I knew there was no sin” and I couldn’t remember any past fulfilling laughter. I didn’t know what AA Bondy was really referring to by “Mightiest Of Guns”, but whatever it was, it led me to a long forgotten place; in my personal upper room, the only place where I could whisper for my need of a healing drift of faith over my everlasting hopeless self-created agony.
Vividly remembering that significant moment, I can say that neither the song itself, nor its wonderful words saved me from any of the painful desperation I was in when I first heard it. The truth is actually even more empowering, as it’s the “Mightiest Of Guns” magnificent honesty that somehow breached out through what I thought was a perfectly designed armor for my fragile state of emotional distress. It’s the sincerity of “Mightiest Of Guns” that deeply touched my ever longing cry for my hearts redemption. Freedom doesn’t always unveil itself the way we might have dreamed of so many times or envisioned so endlessly. Honest and sincere art, crafted as the simplest of all genuine life had the ability to inspire my heart’s footsteps out of my imaginary winter. A first footstep into the light… Far from a drenching rain of freedom, but undeniably a step that led me to let go…
Therefore, when I started to contemplate the idea of crafting an intimate project such as “Vague Souvenir”, that would be reflecting on forgiveness, forgiving, letting go and freedom, I knew that “Mightiest Of Guns” would not only be the album’s opening track, but the first song the band would perform live. At the time, before performing “Mightiest Of Guns” on the set of the Bla Bla Bla: The Live Show, none of Your Favorite Enemies’ members knew that I was envisioning to produce such a project. Neither did they quite understand why I wanted to perform “Mightiest Of Guns” in the first place. Neither did they understand why I wanted that first live performance we’d had in ages to be a stripped down musical version. As a little time reference, we had just gotten back from China and Japan, and the last concerts we did were the most intense ones we had ever done in our career. So the idea of an acoustic version of “Mightiest Of Guns” did raise some interrogation amongst some members of the band. But somehow, I knew that if we were able to play “Mightiest Of Guns” without any type of multiple sonic layers, without any of the loud artifices proper to a rock band, we would be able to collectively go through the “Vague Souvenir” journey. “Mightiest Of Guns” was the starting point. And as the guys rehearsed a song they had never heard before, of which they didn’t quite understand the legitimacy of performing and that they had to play acoustically for an upcoming project they knew nothing about, I started to be seriously ill. I couldn’t rehearse until very late the night before the live performance (which was a few hours away, early in the morning). Doubts were numerous, but faith and trust have always been the last cry for the band. It was another episode of “we trust you Alex”, which also meant, “don’t fuck up, bro”…
An hour prior to being on the set of the Bla Bla Bla: The Live Show, no one knew if I would even make it to the show. I was in pretty bad shape, so the simple idea of performing was on nobody’s mind at that point… until I showed up 10 minutes before show time, still pretty messed up, but ready to give it a try. The call for everybody on the set was “we’ll see what happens, let’s get ready”. So from Stephanie hosting the show to Matt “Big Byrd” on the sound board and YB leading Kim, Kosho and Miriam with the camera cues, the word was that it would be my last minute call if we would go live for “Mightiest Of Guns” performance or not. During the whole Bla Bla Bla, nobody quite knew if we would perform… Until, Matt “Big Byrd” had to make the call, while we were presenting a video: “Alright Alex, up next is the band’s performance of “Mightiest Of Guns”, what’s your call brother?”. I simply smiled and said, almost in a prayer like fashion… “We’re stripped down of everything, so let’s play that song about redemption and absolution”. Two minutes later, we were live… the rest was experienced live with a multitude of loved ones and captured on tape for many more to witness… life.
And regardless of the very unique live performance of this personal and meaningful song, what followed remains priceless for everyone of us. We’ve been able to see, through our too often doubtful eyes, art free from ambition. Living life on a wire made of faith and hope is the most fabulous of all empowering creation, an unexpected invitation to let go, to sow a seed from which life will bloom in the most fabulous of blessings, thus becoming another step in the morning light of the second chance we have of redefining the nature of the life we want to live. As we slowly acknowledge the fact that we are the most incredible creations of all. As we realized that life, as art, is the most exciting canvas of dreams and visions we can ever wish for: life, as life is.
– Alex
Comments (13)
Anna
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Music has always played a huge part in my life… quite honestly I can’t live without it… throughout the years it has definitely been a faithful companion of mine… and has saved me many times! When I found out that the guys would be performing on the set of the Bla Bla Bla, I was more than excited… I knew it was something we wanted to do for a long time… When I saw the performance I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing… I didn’t know this song… I had never heard of this artist… but something about the melody and the words just went straight to my heart… after the performance the words ” And I’m laughing cause I know there ain’t no sin… All the world on a head of a pin” kept playing in my head over and over… Those lyrics relieved me… made me realize that faith and trust had the power to overcome anything… that sometimes what seemed to be impossible in my eyes, If I simply allowed someone take my hand… that mountain soon became as big as a pin’s head… That anything that was in my past was not part of me anymore and I could laugh and smile again ….
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Jeff
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I will always remember this unique day where for the first time Alex and I were visiting this church we actually live in, and fell in love with it at first sight! We were so excited!!! From that moment we promised ourselves that one day we would do live performances and broadcast it all over the world, creating magic and eternal moments with the ones we deeply love! Music has always been what really saved me, and saved us from our own despairs and darkest shadows. I always admired, even pretty close to being jealous, of how talented those guys are in the band, being able to bring so much life and soul through every note and word, en-lighting the entire church as if we were in Heaven for a little while… I didn’t know who AA Bondy was until I joined the guys as they were rehearsing it before the Bla Bla Bla… I fell in love with this right away and I knew it would be a perfect song to perform during the Live Show, but seeing Alex being so sick, and still having some areas in his heart being darkened was tearing me apart…
I feel powerless sometimes in those situations, and this is what frustrates me the most, and this is why I strongly dedicate my life to creating opportunities for this band, for this family, because this music has to be heard, it has to be shared, since every note of it is a life changing experience… nothing less! Maybe this is why it’s a little easier for me to push those guys!! Knowing I wouldn’t be part of the performance, but also knowing despite sickness, darkness, and whatever other existing “ness”, this song, shared with you guys live, would bring life inside those thick stoned church walls. And bring a huge smile on our faces as we’ll look at each other at the end of the show, knowing that was it, no matter how it comes out, that was it! But reading those amazing words by my best friend and dear brother Alex, allows me to understand even more the entire spectrum of the impact of that song on what followed afterwards… Crazy how sometimes, even without knowing everything, faith and trust truly will bring you to climb the highest mountains! Faith and trust are the light at our feet, where step by step, the impossible becomes more than possible, but our daily reality. I sometimes don’t understand everything, or see all that I should in those circumstances, as our nature is pretty much selfish, but one thing remains, as long as we hold our hands, and walk, there will be light!
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Moose
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Music as an inspiration and an invitation to be the artist in our own life… To write every verse with recklessness, allowing ourselves to be fragile, to accept truth as it is knowing that… I’m the one writing the up and coming verses, bridge and chorus.
To me this song pictures an acceptation in order to find a starting line somewhere. “Mightiest Of Guns” is the sound of a relief… A story or a discussion I could have with my closest brother knowing he’s not judging but smiling and crying with me because he’s glad I’m opening up. It’s like being able to acknowledge and share my lack of faith, to talk about the days I deliberately chose to paint in black. “And I’m laughing ’cause I know there ain’t no sin, All the world on the head of a pin” That’s where hope comes in, that’s where my closest brother makes me realize that I can see everything as a mountain or look in his eyes and find the love that sets me free. A look that says… “Don’t be ashamed, don’t flee, you are not your let downs”.
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Sef
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After reading this blog, the first word that came to my mind was: honesty… Acknowledging that we’re the authors of our own illusionary world of misery, breaches the fence that keeps us captive in our own secure kingdom made up of fears and doubts… To strip down all this vanity, I was desperately trying to wear… to portray something I wanted in front of the eyes of the people surrounding me… What if everything I fought so hard for, to keep it alive… would disappear with the wind … “art free from ambition”…that sound so freakin true… I realize even more through my brother’s testimony how much it opened the door for me to let go and live… I have no reason to pretend but to live and share with you… Like AA Bondy wrote:”Tomorrow I’ll be out of my mind, The bear will dance and the organ will grind” Dude…It’s so freakin good to be there man!!!
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Marjo
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Right after reading the first words of this blog, my eyes were filled with tears…because your definition of music is so true to me!! In time of need, music supports you, comforts you and even understands you…but it’s also there to challenge you when needed…I know it’s not human, but to me…music is alive and it is definitely a friend that I can’t live without…And thanks to the artists, that are the essence of the soulful melodies and sounds…
So, I guess this leads me to say, thanks to you Alex and the whole band…for having the humble courage and guts of bringing out there, what’s living inside of you…I’m grateful and inspired with “Vague Souvenir”!! It fits right in, bringing colors, wisdom and peace to what I am experiencing, learning and discovering about life these days…So, thanks guys for being a part of the soundtrack of my life…And I know I’ll be delighted with the reading of every blog about “Vague Souvenir”…since it’s true, genuine, heartfelt…Keep it up…sometimes, music is all you need, in order to express, feel and live what’s inside of you!! I’m with you!! 🙂
Marjo
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Roseanne
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Vague Souvenir to me, is like what “Mightiest of Guns” seems to be to you. I haven’t listened to the album in its entirety, only dabbled in it.. not out of laziness, lack of interest; it is streaming online..
Maybe because i fear of what impact it will have on me – make me really emotional? look me true in the face? break down walls of doubt to lead me to embrace myself & potential maybe..
it took me some effort to even read this blog, b/c i know they do the same
All I know, is that I’m dying to listen to the album. Maybe I’m waiting for that burst of freedom, or it will be through a step of faith, just not yet.. but i will always have hope, & i know a hand reaching out when i am ready
my best wishes xo
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Stephanie
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“there are some songs that, for some strange reason,
are faithful companions to very defining moments in life”
Songs are faithful, there for us whenever we need them to, always have the words we need to hear, always supportive, and they grow as we do… They make us happy, cheer us up, give us energy, confidence… They are wonderful companions, no matter what period of our lives we are in…
Your Favorite Enemies has been just that for me… Faithful companions… The ones that give me the strength to take that crucial first step outside of my own winter… The ones who helped me see the different shades life had to offer… The ones who made me remember what it was like to smile again… The ones who reminded me what it was to “laugh because I know there ain’t no sins”…
The journey is only beginning… And I have never been as excited as now to fully live every moment of it!
– Stephanie
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Chris
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I find it interesting to read that somehow, before touching you with the lyrics, the song reached out to some of your hidden emotions… opening doors you wouldn’t have though possible. I see a lot of mercy there. It came when you were not expecting anything, just like a surprise that then gave birth to this amazing song. It reminds me to be open to the unexpected!! To the fact that beyond what we see and live, the upcoming is full of hope. And who would have though back then that AA Bondy’s ”Mightiest of Guns” would eventually lead the way to a new journey called… ”Vague Souvenir”
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Cassandra
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Wow, that was really touching about what the song means and what it stands for. Lots of deep thoughts.
And i agree, Life is art.
We only have one life, to treasure. To live every moment, be close to does who mean alot to you and a lot more.
Take care Alex hugs from Sweden
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Mary
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Hey Cassandra! It’s so nice to read your thoughts too.
You’re so right, we only have one life, and we cannot go back in time. So that’s surely one more reason for us to grasp and live every moment, with good or bad emotions, but to live it as it is. This really gives us the chance to be fulfilled and experience love & life to the maximum with the ones surrounding us!
Thanks for sharing and letting us discover you … through art 🙂
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Mary
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It’s not the 1st time I hear you say that you prefer listeners to appropriate for themselves a song, to live their own story through it, without being influenced by the writer’s perspective.
But reading your personal journey that led you to discover and interpret this song, for you to share how it penetrated your soul, aroused in me a desire and excitement, to be embraced and awakened by art today, not only my own thinking. It reminded me how a song, a painting, a sculpture, anything made out of a desire to express emotions and life, will influence mine, breath hope that was put aside, or dreams never even imagined being possible to shape and touch.
Thank you for reminding us that the future can be inviting even if sometimes we already feel defeated, because the mystery sensed through art can evoke a desire to embrace life in a time when we don’t expect it, make us renew our mind, create a desire to become a gold digger of the true and pure desires of our hearts.
Thank you for the power of your story, can’t wait to read the others to come!
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Elizabeth
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i did want to say that i was present to share that moment with all of you – that’s not too much to add! :)..I was transfixed with awe and joy..there was a shaking in our spirits for sure and far beyond that i think…and with the recordings, it’s something we can relive at any time we need it and others can experience and share it as well…miracles..
thank you again!!! from the deepest corners of my heart..mom e
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Elizabeth
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Hi dear Alex…kind of as you said in this blog in reference to a song..I don’t think i could add to this with a comment and i might even take away which i DON’T won’t to do…every word is precious.. In fact, i think this may be the most transparent and powerful blog you have ever written..
much love to you and all of YFE..praying as always.. mom e
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