Where Did You Go?
In memory of my friend and bandmate John Housley.
Some of my favorite artists are people I never wanted to meet in person. My heroes have always tended to be difficult, introverted, misanthropic genius types — too unpredictable to risk a personal encounter that might forever ruin my enjoyment of the work. Some have passed away (Lou Reed, Alex Chilton, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis); others I’m still carefully avoiding (Bob Dylan, Neil Young). Except for Leonard Cohen who I’m fairly certain was the world’s most charming man.
People who create beautiful art aren’t always beautiful souls. My friend John Housley was both. There’s no seam in my mind where John stops and the songs he wrote begin. I cannot summon up a mental picture of him or a memory of something he did or said without hearing that slow-moving-freight-train of a voice floating above a jangley Rickenbacker guitar and a ramshackle drum kit. Bakersfield by way of Bushwick Avenue. He happens to be one of my favorite songwriters. The fact that we were also friends is a happy coincidence.
Writing a sad song is hard. Most people suck at it. You try for depth and substance but invariably sentimentality gets the best of you and you veer off into maudlin and sappy. Next thing you know it’s years later and your old 4-track demos sound like bad teenage poetry. The songwriters I most admire — they tend to strip away all that stuff. But a really good sad song is a rare and coveted achievement. That’s the one they’re going to remember you for - Don’t Think Twice. Chelsea Hotel. Skyway. Thirteen. Between the Bars. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.
John Housley was particularly drawn to sad songs and he was particularly good at writing them. How did he avoid the traps that drive lesser songwriters into off-roads of sentimental oblivion? Well… he wasn’t faking it. What most of us need to hear in a writer’s voice is honesty. And the truth is John carried sadness around with him most of his life. I don’t know why. I’m not sure any of us did. There was the loss of his mother at a young age. And perhaps some darker childhood troubles he only hinted at in a haze of alcohol and pills. It was always there, that sadness. You could feel it even when he laughed. Now I have it too.
People complain about getting older all the time. I once heard a woman with terminal cancer who had been through the hell and anguish of chemotherapy on three separate occasions say that nothing angered her more than hearing someone else complain about their upcoming birthday. I’d give anything, she said, to have another birthday.
One of the strange ironies of getting older is you experience a different quality of happiness. It changes with each passing year. My life today is better by miles than it was in my 20s and 30s. I know that is not the case for everyone. But somehow I achieved deeper fulfillment in my work, family and marriage than I ever dreamed possible. So why does it increasingly feel as though time is slipping through my fingers? Why can’t I look upon my mother or my wife’s face without hearing an existential whisper in my ear: This — all of this — is someday going to end.
It’s not a crippling sadness. It’s just a whisper, but it’s always faintly audible. Maybe for John it was louder still. I’ve got his music on now and it feels like he’s here with me in the room, sitting on the edge of the bed, a shaggy mop of dark hair and a guitar in his lap. He’s talking to me about a song he loves. He’s trying to work out the chords and laughing. After a while he gets quiet and distant as he often did and we part ways. Off he goes alone into the hazy New York night, sad-eyed and searching. John always seemed to be searching for something he couldn’t quite find. I hope he’s found it.
John would have turned 43 in May. I know at the time of this writing that I’ll carry his sadness around with me for a while. Sometimes it will be heavy but life will go on. You’re going to get older and you’re going to lose people. That is part of the bargain. But there is joy in here someplace between the sorrow and pain. Death has a clarifying effect on life. It’s a constant reminder that the only thing that matters is now. Not tomorrow and not yesterday. Right now.
Rest in peace, my friend. You’ll never hear me complain about having another birthday again.
