I turned onto the dirt road at sunset, stuck my hand out the window and waved to my Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother in Law and their two boys. The sky, sapphire blue, was dotted with fair weather Cumulus clouds already turning pink and orange in the fading light of the setting sun. They were standing, hand in hand, waving back at me with sunburnt faces and farewell smiles. The dogs were playing around them in the tall grass and Vs of birds were tracking Northbound in perfect formation.
A big sigh left my body as I turned the corner and saw them recede in my rearview mirror. I hit play on the radio and with the cool evening breeze rushing in through the open windows I started making my way through the Vredefort Dome, Guy Clark singing Cornmeal Waltz.
It’s times like these, when the perfect song takes you back to the pages of your life’s photo album and there, with your hands on the wheel, the pages turn and you are transported back to the home movies in your memory. The landscape remains majestic. Imposing mountains towering over valleys of gold and green criss-crossed by mighty rivers and whirling creeks. It is has also changed and not necessarily for the better. Many of the old timers are gone now. Grandpa and Grandma and most of their peers and friends. Some neighbours sold their farms and moved to the city and a long time neighbour recently and sadly took his own life. Old watering holes have become commercialised and are filled with city folks that shamelessly stare at farmers wearing dirty jeans and sweaty hats while sipping on their craft gin cocktails and listening to the latest shit on the radio. Quiet weekends have given way to screaming dirt bikes and shiny SUVs impatiently forcing their way past a herd of cattle crossing the road to another pasture regardless of red flags waving and reflective jackets. Cattle choke on trash thrown out of car windows and I don’t feel so comfortable anymore to let the boys play close to the road.
Cornmeal Waltz off Guy Clark’s last album paints a familiar picture and took me back to a time all but gone from these parts. I remember barn dances and the pickup trucks parked from “ here to the road”. I can still see the steel tubs filled with ice for the “ beer so cold it might freeze”. I remember my folks, friends and neighbours gliding over the dance floor covered in cornmeal and peanut shells “ belt buckles bumping in time” to a Don Williams or Kris Kristofferson tune. That girl I kissed behind the barn is married now, haven’t seen her in years and I can still taste the blood on my tongue from fighting the fat kid that pushed my little sister around. I recall a much younger version of myself falling asleep underneath the steel table and being carried to the car by my dad after the party and smelling his after shave and beer breath. Good times. The real kind.
Bruce Springsteen mentioned in his autobiography that people don’t come to shows to forget about their lives but rather to be reminded of something hidden or locked away in their deepest being. I get that. Perhaps that is why people still go to big concerts and live shows. Logistically difficult and costly as they might be. Or maybe that’s why some don’t go. They don’t want to be reminded that something beautiful and innocent were lost along the way and that it would most likely never return. What I don’t get is that some Afrikaners, my people, would flock to Afrikaans music festivals where people who, in my opinion have no business being on stage, sing songs of bubblegum nostalgia, hardwood fires and barn dances while auto tune and backtracks do their dismal job of keeping the feet stomping and the manicured beards full of beer foam and the out of shape bellies bulging with brandy. As a songwriter I make a living out of observing the human condition and from what I’ve seen the music that “ my people” listen to these days does not reflect reality for most. Financially and institutionally our country is in shambles, corruption systemic and violent crime has just become a way of life for most. Basic systems have crumbled under poor maintenance and incompetence and the working man gets crushed by relentless tax and fuel hikes while crime pays… big time. The really poor, well, they keep falling through the cracks.
What gives me hope you might ask ? People like Valiant Swart and my friends Dirk Jordaan and Gerhard Jacobs to name a few. Songwriters and artists who know that the “ good old days “ some of our local artists are singing about were not necessarily the good old days but also have the humility to acknowledge that things are not right…. and probably will never be for the person on the ground, struggling to make ends meet in their daily lives.
This world and our country need artists willing to be true to themselves and true to what they see out there. To be brave and humble enough to tell our stories with empathy and respect. It is my mission to be exactly that.
See you all real soon !
JB